Woven - Designer Codes
Saturday, July 19th, 2008
Cosmonaut
From the sun baked streets of Los Angeles come one of the most seemingly bitter bands I’ve seen in a while. I guess it’s not that uncommon for a place notorious for at least twice as much failure as success to breed such a tortured and pensive musical force. The visions invoked through the Geiger-esque biomechanical artwork of Designer Codes come to life throughout the album. It plays partly like a gothy Depeche Mode album that must have been destroyed in a fire before it was released, but after a few listens it can remind one of a more sympathetic, less bitter Nine Inch Nails, and yet there’s a dynamic arena rock aspect similar to Hail to the Thief-era Radiohead or their recent tourmates Liars. The pounding of war-like drums coupled with the harsh clanging of digital scrap metal make me wonder: is Woven creating an atmosphere or destroying an already existing one?
Throughout the album I wavered a bit as this music at times seems very masochistic, cold, and industrial, yet underneath there is a very compassionate layer of emotion. The tracks sometimes play as if they are inflicting harm upon themselves. “Perception Whore” (like many of the tracks) pits contradictory elements against one another. A swooning choir of angels carries you throughout until you’re forced to consider whether or not they are actually crying out in agony. There’s a fierce momentum evident in the song structure which eventually leads to a rather ambivalent sound.
Designer Codes actually reminded me of an artist which seemed to be erased from my mind for quite some time. Remember VAST (Visual Audio Sensory Theatre)? Their self-titled album gave me a similar feeling to this one. On both albums my impression seemed to be that these are artists who are not preoccupied with creating beautiful music. These are artists who are creating, in an almost smug way, music that will give you chills, make you feel uncomfortable, make you long for the surreal, make you want to step into the shadow of your unconscious mind and experience the world in which they operate. Woven has made their way into the “guilty pleasure” section of my musical tastes, and the fucked-up thing is, I really have no idea why I feel guilty. Maybe it’s the same guilt one gains due to extracting pleasure from pain. In the masochist’s eye, pain and pleasure are nearly the same thing, and the brain tends to release the same chemical for both.
That being said, Designer Codes did make me feel a little uncomfortable and confused until I reached “Cosmonaut” and fell in love. While there are few tracks on the album as strong as this one, I would dare not take any of these songs out of their context and place them in, say, a very depressing and angsty playlist. Each song necessitates the other, ultimately creating a very impressive and cohesive album. Designer Codes requires the right kind of mindset, as it probably won’t grab you immediately. Instead you’d probably need it playing as background noise to allow it to work its way into the id. For those who consider music with this degree of moody self-examination to be pretentious and tiring, I’d still say give it a try. A guilty pleasure is still pleasurable after all.
