Apropos that Gang Gang Dance start their latest album with the words “I can hear everything/It’s everything time.” Eye Contact, Gang Gang Dance’s first album released on 4AD, sounds just like that, a collection of influences and genres strung together to create a weird, exciting, and otherworldly headphones album. Perhaps I wanted Tomboy to sound thusly, but, Gang Gang Dance, who have been around for the better half of a decade, now just put together the best album in their catalog. There hasn’t been a release yet this year that sounds so much like the current times while borrowing so much from previous decades.
The album opener “Glass Jar” is enough in itself to create an EP. This 11-minute epic starts slowly, perhaps like a space shuttle with its engine firing, then near the 5-minute mark it blasts through the atmosphere to not return. Arpeggioed keys augment an emphatic bass bump, which has been used to a strong effect at their live performances, is first heard here on one of their studio albums. The tone that is set from this first track does not let up throughout the rest of the album. Although there are intermittently and exquisitely placed interludes, any track with a written title (essentially, I do not want to take aback the interludes) has areas to explore, to dance to, or to just let wash over you in the sun or under the stars. Perhaps the latter is befitting for Eye Contact.
Liz Bougatsos’ voice sounds better than ever on this album as well. Her gentle coos from Saint Dymphna are still here but on other tracks it’s distorted in ways we haven’t heard. “Chinese High” is a song that sounds like Kate Bush and it features guitarist Tim Koh, from Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. His reverberated guitar, plus Bougatsos’ childlike voice, and a pop-song structure allows it to be the most accessible track. “MindKilla” follows “Chinese High” and it is more dance floor-ready than even “Glass Jar.” It has enough 808s, synths, bass beats, horns and alarms, a fucking lullaby, and exasperations. To elaborate more on these two songs, on the LP version of the album these tracks are the only two on side 2 (of 3). They play just like a single would, let’s say that “Chinese High” would be the A-side and “MindKilla” as its B-side. These two tracks aren’t just standout tracks on this album; they are standout tracks for this year.
The album’s final side starts with the second interlude, “∞∞,” this brings the listener down from the serotonin-overloaded “MindKilla.” It is perfectly placed because “Romance Layers” has the laid-back duet of Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor and Liz Bougatsos exchanging melodies amidst keyboard chimes and electric guitars. Later is “∞∞∞” which forebodes the album finale. Gurgling water, the refrain of “I’m so high/Can’t seem to find my way” plus the raising tempo of a tribal drum beat leads to “Thru and Thru.” An Arabian melody that is segmented with a voice sample yell, followed by a tribal percussion beat that leads into, for a lack of me not knowing what to call it, a muezzin’s call.
Eye Contact is an extraterrestrial re-imagination of genres and influences we didn’t know could be re-appropriated in such a manner. Although their previous albums were certainly weird, Eye Contact remains accessible, but not enough to steer away fans from Saint Dymphna or God’s Money.
(Reviewer’s Score 4.2/5)
