A snap judgement of Kone, the latest EP from Chicago art rockers Disappears, suggests the band might be taking their foot off the gas. Comprised of three songs clocking in at more than 30 minutes, Kone finds the band packing a lot of tuneful noise into its limited slate of songs.
To date, they’ve exuded enough patience to let their music unfold in lush layers of shoegazey reverb and guitar trickery. The EP’s title track, checking in at a leisurely 15:45, proves as much, slowly uncoiling into a mess of moody, ambient guitars, electronic blips, and a steady back beat. ”Kontrakt” reels in the waywardness, too, but the band’s provocative flare for experimentation takes center stage. On the EP’s final track, “Kone (Edit)”, they give a light shave to the title track, cutting it down to a (still) robust 10:17.
If Kone comes off as filler, that may be by design. With a full-length follow-up to last year’s triptastic Pre-Language slated for later this year, it’s fair to look at Kone as a bridge between projects. While the band ran its sordid psychedelia, garage, kraut, and art rock influences through the pop music ringer on past releases to solid results, Disappears allows its uninhibited musical instincts to run wild on Kone. It may not have the rewarding immediacy of the band’s proper releases, but it still retains an irrepressible taste for adventure and there’s value in listening to them cut loose.
Essential Track: “Kone”
