- Matmos cofounder Drew Daniel dives into deep house for one of the most sumptuous (and often relaxing) albums of his long and storied career.
- Each of Drew Daniel's albums as The Soft Pink Truth begins with a question. Usually dance music is his toolkit for answering it, as on Why Do The Heathen Rage?, which thumbed its nose at reactionary black metal fandom by arguing that metal lyrics about sin and sodomy could fit wonderfully into afterhours leather club anthems. On his new LP Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This?, the question is more of a challenge to himself. This is a lush album cast in the opulent hues of disco-inflected deep house, where "depth" is the goal above all else.
Depth in this situation doesn't mean the ideological, intellectual or thematic kind, but instead a type of immersion—the feeling of being transported into another world. Deep house retains the dynamic range of disco, where pianos and horns glimmer out of the mix as strings and synths simmer far away. Daniel employs a massive cast of collaborators in order to foster that three-dimensional feeling, from regulars like saxophonist Andrew Bernstein and his house-diva-of-choice Jenn Wasner to new faces like string arranger Uras Kurugullu and all manner of horn players, harpists, flautists and percussionists. The four-on-the-floor kick drum keeps the listener on a one-way track into the bowels of the 70-minute LP.
Daniel does this by masterfully manipulating the mood of the album so that it's one thing and then another thing. without the listener ever really noticing the change. "Deeper" opens with 11 minutes of deluxe instrumental disco inflected with Latin percussion and loping rhythm guitars. Daniel keeps the groove going just long enough that we forget what we're listening to. Once we've started to settle in, here comes Xiu Xiu singer Jamie Stewart hamming it up on the Georges Bataille-referencing "La Joie Devant La Mort," taking exquisite queer melancholia to the edge of self-parody in that highwire way only Stewart can.
Now that we know Daniel's going to use vocals, it's time to hear him do something beautiful with them: "Wanna Know" is a full-on pop song, with Wasner contributing saccharine Bee Gees harmonies. "Wanna Know" is probably going to be the all-time Soft Pink Truth banger, the one that ends up in playlists and party scenes in indie movies. Yet it does a great job of deepening the album—it's this record's "Tessio." Then it disappears back into the fog and smoke, and after a few minutes of "Trocadero" we realize, with a start, that there haven't been vocals for a while.
Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This? proceeds like that for 70 minutes. It's deep, then it's funny, then it's pretty, then it's deep again, then it's funny again, then it's deep again. Actually, it's often at least two of these things at the same time. If the LP doesn't succeed at being the deepest album of all time, it's because of "Sunwash," a 13-minute Tangerine Dream-style sequencer fantasia that builds endless anticipation at the moment the album should be at its spookiest and most plangent. But it's hilarious when "Deeper Than This?" interrupts with close-mic'd, cartoonishly seductive French dialogue.
The title Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This? could be read as a dirty joke, and the little gasps and moans throughout, especially on "Joybreath," add a salacious layer. Daniel's been tweeting photos of himself as a young go-go dancer in the '90s along with the album cover, and there's the sense that he's allowing himself to indulge so sumptuously in this music because of the central role it's played in his life and those of other queer people drawn to nightlife.
Daniel doesn't underline this theme as strongly as he does on the record's companion EP Was It Ever Real?, which presented a healthy and fulfilling vision of gay sex. But the way he chooses to pay straight-ahead tribute to disco and deep house rather than grappling with it is a statement on its own. It's the most relaxed, comfortable album he's ever made, and it's a delight to drift along with him.
Tracklist01. Deeper
02. La Joie Devant La Mort
03. Wanna Know
04. Trocadero
05. Moodswing
06. Sunwash
07. Joybreath
08. Deeper Than This?
09. Toot Sweet
10. Now That It's All Over