Animal Hospital

Animal Hospital

Kevin Micka has returned with his first full-length since 2009's Memory, Fatigue is a chronicle and culmination of the past 10 years of Micka creating live music for large ensembles. In his return to the recorded format, Micka collapses his exploded-view approach to composing and has created four laser-guided and utterly distinct pieces of music composed with vinyl’s inherent limitations in mind. Mastered by James Plotkin, Fatigue dives deep into layered microtonal passages and ping-ponging guitar samples and field recordings on “Framework” while album opener “Conditions” is a dense study of sustained tones that contain worlds of sound within its boundaries.

Perhaps with the format’s eventual demise on the horizon, Animal Hospital has created a listening experience that pushes back and celebrates our relationship to the LP.

PRESS

THE SOUND NOT THE WORD

Don’t let the album name fool you; this music doesn’t feel tired or draining. Instead its glitches, loops, and guitar manipulation is somehow healing and refreshing, somewhere between the playfulness of Nobukazu Takemura (and especially his work as Child’s View) and the summer haze of Fennesz, with a dash of krautrock-inspired hypnosis, most notably on closer ‘Absolute’. It’s good to have Kevin Micka releasing music as Animal Hospital again, as in these trying times, music with such soul and restorative potential is needed.