Iglooghost is an Irish lad named Seamus Malliagh, and his music appears on Brainfeeder, the
Flying Lotus-helmed imprint which often releases abstract hip-hop and jazz, but it could just have easily appeared on an obscure Japanese netlabel like Maltine Records, or experimental meta-pop collective PC Music. Malliagh's productions are giddy, cartoonish, and extremely busy, with densely packed samples and squeaky voices flying around at an impossibly rapid pace. Basically, it sounds like the musical equivalent of the craziest, most complex, and visually stunning video game ever created, with too much happening at one time to mentally process everything, but somehow there's a strange sense of subliminal logic which pushes everything along, and it makes more sense the more time you devote to it. Not surprisingly, his releases (including EPs Chinese Nü Year and Little Grids as well as this full-length debut,
Neō Wax Bloom) are conceptually centered around a cast of bizarre, fantastic characters, particularly Xiāngjiāo, an amorphous, time-traveling worm. It can be hard to tell there's a story at hand simply by listening, but a few elements reoccur which seem to thread things together, particularly a multi-tracked R&B choral vocal which will be difficult to dislodge from your brain once the album's done. Aside from chirpy vocals and sugary yet remarkably complex melodies, the album is filled with hyperkinetic, elastic beats which effortlessly switch from over-caffeinated trap to jittery footwork to rave-influenced IDM, bringing to mind everyone from
Squarepusher (circa "Do You Know Squarepusher") to fellow Brainfeeder signee
DJ Paypal to Brooklyn-based producer Machine Girl. Malliagh intriguingly threads some non-electronic instruments throughout all the bubbly cartoon noises and slamming beats. Some processed saxophone squirms its way through the first two tracks, a bit of
Chon-like math rock guitar pops up during a few others, and occasionally some acoustic string instruments add a touch of wistfulness, such as the violin during "White Gum." A few moments break from the frenzy, including "Infinite Mint," which features Japanese trip-hop/dream pop chanteuse
Cuushe, but even this is intense and bracing. "Teal Yomi/Olivine" features swagger-heavy rapping from
Iglooghost's regular collaborator Mr. Yote, and the particularly frenetic "Peanut Choker" slips some
Björkian cooing underneath hard-hitting breakbeats. It goes without saying that this album might be too much for most people to handle; if you automatically respond to electronically pitched-up vocals with "That just sounds like
the Chipmunks!," this definitely isn't going to make any sense to you. However, if you're up for a highly creative, exhilarating sugar rush,
Neō Wax Bloom will undoubtedly be one of the most joyous surprises of the year. [
Neō Wax Bloom was also released on LP.] ~ Paul Simpson