Methods Body’s groundbreaking second record, Plural Not Possessive, is an opus against the algorithm—ranging from 22 seconds to 15 minutes in duration, these five tracks reveal lush ecosystems woven out of the duo’s spontaneous compositions.
John Niekrasz (drums, voice) and Luke Wyland (keys, electronics, voice) create musical and technological strategies that force them to break old habits and patterns. Extrinsic song forms and standardized meters fall away. Time becomes a physical substance sculpted to alter the listener’s emotional experience. Wyland channels his life-long stutter into a music of broken speech. There are lost languages in this record—it is haunted by artifacts the musicians can’t explain.
Over two years, Niekrasz and Wyland worked together in their forest studio, staving off darkness at a time when it wasn’t possible to be with others. Plural Not Possessive stands as a bracing evolution of the ensemble’s previous work, but fans will still recognize Methods Body’s hallmark microtonality, uncanny rhythms, world-building intricacy, and unmistakable collaborative chemistry.
"In Methods Body’s music, nothing feels fixed in place. The drums-and-electronics duo’s debut album is as slippery as the deck of a boat in a storm: Muscular rhythms in strange time signatures, microtonal prepared-piano riffs, droning feedback—they all careen back and forth, colliding, breaking into pieces. The result is a gnarled hybrid of free improv, minimalist composition, and dance music that advances in fits and starts, repetitive until it is not, knotty until it turns unexpectedly smooth." – Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork
BNSD077
credits
released June 16, 2023
Luke Wyland: Keys and electronics
John Niekrasz: Drums, percussion, and voice
Diana Oropeza: Voice on Impedimenta
Recorded in Corbett in 2022
Engineered by Luke Wyland
Mixed by Luke Wyland and Aron Sanchez
Mastered by Aron Sanchez
Cover art by Francesca Capone
Layout by ACN
Bio: Portland duo Methods Body creates original sound art and music using custom tuning systems, involuted polyrhythms, and the cadences of language. John Niekrasz (Ecstatic Peace, ESP-Disk') and Luke Wyland (The Leaf Label, Hometapes, Crammed Records) use bespoke live-sampling technologies and spontaneous composition to inhabit waves of subliminal melody and deep, uncanny grooves. Methods Body's 2020 self-titled debut, released by Beacon Sound and New Amsterdam, has been received with critical acclaim.
METHODS BODY (Portland, OR, USA) creates original sound art and music using custom tuning systems, involuted polyrhythms,
and the cadences of language. John Niekrasz (Ecstatic Peace, ESP-Disk') and Luke Wyland (AU, The Leaf Label) use bespoke live-sampling technologies and meta-cognitive compositions to inhabit waves of subliminal melody and deep, uncanny grooves....more
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