Yoko Ono once declared “People make music to get a reaction. Music is communication”.
Fast forward to an ‘Approximately Infinite Universe’ of The Cool Greenhouse’s creation and the aforementioned Ono is now running on treadmills to nowhere, following good advice which nobody can decipher and still remains to be called-out to ‘Smile, Love!’- all in this small-town nightmare of artistic avulsions.
Reactions are what you make of them but for The Cool Greenhouse, musically-mutating seed of thought has turned into responsive reception.
There are great skills required in keeping your greenhouse cool and rhythmically functioning. Vents can be encouraged to instinctively trigger the regular airing process, but as exemplified in Tom Greenhouse’s hotbed of rhetoric, such dialogues require efficiency and a tendency to lean towards the satirically seasoned. The instructions are pretty direct here: quip, develop, repeat.
Where last years ‘Crap Cardboard Pet’ EP did little to deviate from their signature discord, now the bedroom pop has gone rogue (with added organ); upheaving all furnishings in favour of some candidly brilliant, raw anarchy. Harking back to the root principle of designing “repetitive pop music that isn’t boring” whilst building bridges between an already established Architecture Of Language. ‘Cardboard Man’ remains to roam freely in an upheaval of alternative facts, yet this time round, the conversation has turned from the illogical to dancing at the feet of absurdity, whilst nailing an off-centred sign towards a lyrical U-bend that leans wholly leftfield.
Standout ‘Gum’ is a sleazy piece of work and arguably one of the more adjusted musically. A wise-cracked taunt loaded with about as much sympathy as a Wetherspoons branded straightjacket, complete with bullish buckle fastenings. Don’t for one minute think you’re getting out of here anytime soon, this is a very specific kind of embedded grit. The cowbell era staining your white-collar shirt with rings of ash and leaving the ugliest of ‘fishpond’ aftertastes.
The Cool Greenhouse, like their fully functioning, natural wonder unit namesake, serves best when left to metamorphosise overtime. Imagine an existential notebook, dripping in conspiracy theories, figuratively torn apart and then re-hashed back together again with a bit of obsessive attention. This record may be voluminous and caustically chewed in places but unquestionably, it’s timeless.
The new issue of So Young is out now. It’s SOLD OUT in print but you can read the digital edition below.