ALBUM REVIEW: Mother Engine – Amiture
Born from the creative minds of Jack Whitescarver and Coco Goupil, AMITURE is not a conventional duo. Taking inspiration from an incredibly wide musical palette, elements of folk, blues, RnB, dance, and noise collide in a visceral and often disconcerting way. 2022 saw the band release their debut EP Swimmer, and since then the pair have been hard at work chiselling out the shape they truly seek to take. Recorded in a garage located between a sanitation station and a railway track, in collaboration with experimental musicians such as Matt Norman and Henry Birdsey, their debut album began to take form as an unsettling, unyielding sonic experience known as Mother Engine. The results are simply beguiling.
Mother Engine is a delightfully warped collection of tracks that refuses categorisation; country riffs brush up against trip-hop drum machine loops, whilst glittering synths sparkle in the background of reverb-soaked vocals that haunt the very fringes of some songs. It’s a dramatic and often gripping affair that has wide-reaching appeal despite its enigmatic nature.
The opening track Glory showcases this perfectly, with dirty, bluesy, twanging guitars set against minimalist electronic beats. Whitescarver is ghostly in his delivery, as he repeats “I know my shit is pure” as if a mantra, or perhaps even a desperate prayer. Rattle pushes things even further into experimental territories, with luscious, hypnotic, repetitive, guitars forming a fuzzy textured layer atop of looping percussive beats
AMITURE’s penchant for underground dance music comes through on Billy’s Dream, with its sinister, thick bass lines, and scratching guitars that exist as a liminal expression of an idea; barely music, yet raw and evocative. Huge percussion samples thunder along beneath it all, dragging the song along almost against its will.
It’s not only the musicianship that is a showcase of eccentricity here; Whitescarver’s lyricism is often dark, and sometimes delirious. Dirty sings of one last passionate moment before the inevitable loss of a lover, whilst the aforementioned Billy’s Dream pictures the titular character fleeing some unseen malevolent force. Baby and Cocaine both take a turn for the Freudian, as Whitescarver alludes to complex, intermeshed relationships with parental figures.
Other highlights include HWL, a slow-burning scorcher with devilish distorted guitars rubbing up against subtle percussion, and the closing track Swamp, which sees Goupil taking the reins on the vocal front on this lengthy, eerie musical statement. Goupil is a fantastic presence throughout the record, with her unique understanding of how to achieve atmosphere with unconventional guitar playing, so her vocals also being an impactful presence is frankly unsurprising.
Any issues with this record only stem from just how unsettling it is. Mother Engine is not an easy listen, with multiple tracks across the 12 songs here reaching the five-minute mark, and little in the way of catchy hooks or melodies for the listener to grasp onto. On top of that, the momentum towards the back section of the album does unfortunately begin to stagnate, with Porte Sosie and American Flag marking a low point for the record.
Ultimately, however, what is here to be enjoyed far outweighs what issues there are. Mother Engine is an ambitious, inventive, and captivating record that aims to both thrill and unsettle. AMITURE’s sound is so very distinctly their own, at times complex and luscious, and at times stark and abrasive. All of this makes for a record that is absolutely worth spending time with.
Rating: 8/10
Mother Engine is out now via Dots Per Inch Music.
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