Ulrika Spacek

For French theorist Jacques Derrida ‘deconstruction’ is the critique between text and meaning; an on-going process that questions the accepted basis of ‘distinctions.

This dichotomy between ‘objective/subjective’ lays at the heart of Ulrika Spacek’s The Suggestive Listening EP. From the cover artwork’s display of the lyrics and song durations to a breakdown of the recording process (information is key in formation) it reminds of both XTC and Scritti Politti’s similar ventures in demystifying and articulating the means of production/the production of meaning.

Not wishing to get bogged down in a ‘sound’ or ‘style’ they have returned from a hiatus with this E.P. (and new full time member Syd Kemp) especially for the manufactured scarcity phenomenon (500 blue, 500 pink’ don’t tell #metoo) that is Record SHOP Day on 20th April.

Comprising a downbeat and melodical quintet of slacker hymns, there’s a mid-90s US sheen throughout: a rock collage of college rock.

The slow-burning strum-thrum of ‘No. 1 Hum’ evokes Stateside sidewalkers Pavement, languid and laconic without being ‘ironic’ or sardonic. ‘Black Mould’ is shallow-fried placid rock, an ambling and rambling perambulation. The much missed Stereolab’s electro-dots and looped bloops add a motorik-kosmische feel to ‘Freudian Slip’ as an unconscious utterance undoes unsaid ululations.

Fortune favour’s ‘Lord Luck’ a blissed out tale of narcodelia in the vein of the Super Furry Animals (c.f. ‘Ice Hockey Hair’): heightened head music for music heads. Elliott Smith’s ghost pays a visit on the meditative and ruminative musings ‘of Wave to Paulo, he’s not there’.

In our thumb down, dumbed down culture of blandroids this E.P. is a welcome cerebral remedy. Accept nothing, question everything. To misparaphrase Ralph Nader ‘Reconstruct reality or else reality will reconstruct you’.