As I look upon this purple hued cover art and listen to this electronic ambient music hailing from Scotland I'm struck with a strange sense of deja vu. Scanning the Bandcamp page I was able to confirm what I knew in my heart to be true - Twelve to Two is from Jude Kerr, whose album Digital Personas I reviewed only yesterday. Or to be more precise, Jude Kerr makes up one half of Whiskey Pepper, along with Angel Kerr (whose relation I will leave to my own imagination). As I sit here, wondering how they were able to bypass this site's water-tight "one review request per user" policy, the music takes me to another planet.
I'm kidding of course, I'm happy to listen to more of this artist after loving Digital Personas, and it's interesting to hear what they make when part of a duo.
Twelve to Two is a three track EP and to my ears it sounds fairly improvised. The opening track, Microwave Dinner, is full of howling synths that echo past creepy and indecipherable conversation, and it sounds like pure sci-fi. To get oddly specific, it reminds me of those episodes of Ren & Stimpy where they're in space (my sister and I had a video with two episodes called Space Madness and Marooned).
Ooo Woo is an aural assault of noise accompanied with some plinky plonky synths that were present in the last two, too. At points it sounds like one of the musicians is slamming their arm down on the keys. It's a track that seems to revel in the chaos, and so do I.
The third and final track, White Jasmine, is centred around an organ sound. Equally chaotic, really, but less noisy with it. It feels like it's constantly looking and often finding interesting harmonies amongst the tones. The whole time, and throughout all three tracks, there's this echoing conversation that is truly creepy sounding.
Like I said, I think this is all improvised. It reminds me of times when me and a friend or two have decided to record something with basically zero initial plan, just to see what happens. I enjoyed listening to it, but that improvisation nature means it's a bit lacking in terms of structure and composition, there aren't really movements and climaxes, things just make sounds for a while and then they stop. I like it for sure, but I think it's worth going into this EP with that understanding.