[Emotional Response / No Pain In Pop]
Speaking on his video work in a recent interview with Juno Plus, Luke Wyatt insists he has been unfairly pigeonholed: “I think people misunderstand my video expression as existing in the context of this facile 1980’s nostalgia movement, which by now is probably over for the kids anyway.” Wyatt’s tangents throughout the interview, not to mention the ridiculous “tracklist” he provides for its accompanying mix (sample: “The grace of our loitering, our lazy quips as yet unacclaimed; sitting on warm hoods of cars making immortal jokes about Jeffrey Gordon.”), suggest a complex about requiring a backstory for his material, whether audio or visual. Superficially, there is not much to separate him from chillwave or hypnagogic pop — he uses VHS and worn-out synthesizers, makes references to TV movies and SeaWorld. His two latest releases illustrate how he has moved from somewhat naïve explorations (it’s telling that Teen Hawk, his compilation of early work, is released under his birth name, rather than Torn Hawk) to a more solidified style.
Teen Hawk is marked with bygone presets, but Wyatt is right to separate himself from the “facile” and “nostalgic.” This music looks at past modes as a canvas to create alternate paths, dealing with memory in a way that grapples with its inherent creepiness. There are hints of other musicians throughout: the mixture of hopeful passages and yawning, chasmic dives on “Bertone Stratos” call to mind Ford & Lopatin’s uncanny pop tunes, while “I Recommend Starman” does a fine impersonation of The Durutti Column with added digital sheen. Wyatt jumps from pulsing distortion on “Wrong Crowd” to lilting, AFX-ian melodies on “Time For Thick,” but they are somehow united in how scrambled they are. You can hear the artist trying to find his footing, working to piece together something new from his influences. At the very least, the frazzled, time-traveling vibe is strong here.
Karen Gwyer’s Needs Continuum is a subtle record, and its planar kosmische is ripe for reinterpretation. Wyatt’s “Cowboys (For Karen),” the latest Torn Hawk release, reworks tracks from that album and shows how he’s matured in the process. This might partly be an illusion brought on by Gwyer’s characteristic shuddering rhythms and rite-like repetition, which underpin these tracks and ground them. Wyatt does not take much license to move around the genre map, but “Cowboys” does hearken back to his earlier efforts, with more twangy Vini Reilly guitar echoing out over a digital plain. Apart from this exception, though, the record feels of a piece with Gwyer’s originals, simply swapping out some of her introspection (and singing) for a more gyroscopic, breathing-machine feeling. As with those originals, these tracks can feel monotonous, but there is a lot to enjoy in their minimalism if one focuses enough. At any rate, it’s clear that Wyatt is moving away from his earlier work’s naïve connotations, however charming they are at times.
