Karen Gwyer - Rembo
Rembo’ is reminiscent of ‘Rambo’. Fight and win. Sweat and punch. Karen Gwyer has her own duel in her songs. Meandering versus techno beats. Swooning versus overpowering. It’s a tight battle in which Karen Gwyer, against her habit, limits the length of her tracks to gripping lengths. ‘Why Is There A Long Line In Front Of The Factory’, ‘Because The Workers Are On Strike’. It’s an unprecedented dialogue between tracks. It reads funny as a track list. If you listen, you understand what she wants to do. Scream and answer. It seems too reflective, but that’s beyond Gwyers’ desire to make dance records. Melancholy soon becomes dreamy and tightly danceable. Its counterpart sounds like fluttering, aimless chords played by a child’s hand. Gwyer improvises on stage, searching for fragments and testing the audience’s willingness to dance. Songs grow like small, tangible ideas until they end up on record. Her Detroit roots shine through on the delightful ‘Why Does Your Father Look So Nervous’, jittery, maddening rhythms, a rarely struck chord. But she gets even grander on ‘He’s Been Teaching Me How To Drive’. Pumpy, elastic, detail-rich, slow-building techno that explodes into a famous club track. Sweat drips from the walls. Floors as slippery as an overheated night at the Tresor. Once the sweat splashes, Gwyer moves on to harder pounding on the closing ‘Did You Hear The Owls Last Night’. Haunting and slightly intimidating. Grown up and lived in. Karen Gwyer has not only brought a new little person into the world, she has also grown as an artist, becoming more and more of a connoisseur’s hallmark.