- This hugely inventive, unclassifiable five-tracker is the latest Optimo Music release to come from Glasgow's Green Door Studio, an all-analogue, community-minded recording space in the city's West End. It gives young musicians the opportunity to rehearse and record for free, and the results have been spectacular from the get-go, with Golden Teacher and Organs Of Love among its recent alumni. On this debut release Whilst, "an unnervingly young" local group according to the press sheet, explore styles ranging from motorik, krautrock ("Umgebung") to trumpet-led North African funk ("Untitled From North Africa") with a staggering level of self-assurance.
Opener "Goya's Skull Master" is the most linear of the tracks, slinking along on a dubby punk-funk bassline, pitter-patter drums, wafting horns and mantric vocal loops. The final two cuts are the most experimental. "Wee Moth" is a skit-length mass of free jazz, and the half-there machine croaks, whistle-howls and sombre piano line of "Postcard From A Robot" could be the fruit of experimentation in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop circa 1963. Everything There Was Was There is a sometimes bewildering but always immersive melting pot of ideas. Something to be celebrated, in other words.
TracklistA1 Goya's Skull
A2 Untitled From North Africa
B1 Umgebung
B2 Wee Moth
B3 Postcards From A Robot