Bowlegs Album Review: Big Sir’s Before Gardens After Gardens
Big Sir’s third record is a twitchy creature at heart. Smooth trails of melody are stirred up with a flickering set of rhythms, soft synth lines and various guises of bass guitar. The duo – Lisa Papineau, and The Mars Volta bassist Juan Alderete – continually tweak their output, playing with elements of soul, funk and even the odd foray into drum and bass BPMs.
Regions opens the album with a funked, sliding bass-line and clap-happy backbeat. Papineau’s vocal breathes intimately across the sparse backing – synths fill the glacial atmosphere. The minimal approach is nothing new, but Big Sir have enough creativity to remain listenable. So where some songs might fail to connect in an emotional capacity (the looping break that is Ready on the Line is of little interest), there are tracks like Old Blood which find new territory in distorted guitars and a gutsier approach.
Be Brave Go On has Alderte on full funk mode, his bass slapping (in a thoughtful manner) while Papineua displays her ethereal and hushed intonation. It doesn’t really go anywhere, but as the title line is repeated with more and more intent it becomes a strange highlight. It’s followed with Our Pleasant Home, the live drum sound and electronic strings becoming a hypnotic canvas for the Papineau to display her falsetto edge.
Big Sir have probably made their best record yet in Before Gardens After Gardens, trickling icy soul and fiddly patterns into the mix, all making for a set well worth a listen.
