Displacer - Night Gallery

This one's got it all, dear reader. Infectious beats, scintillating atmospheres and incredibly enough: hooks. After five years in the wilderness, Canada's Displacer have put out a near-perfect record. I'm stunned at how much I like this accessible new work from a man who has done some decidedly confounding albums in the past. There's enough cinematic drive on "Night Gallery" to satisfy even the most exacting connoisseur of film scores. Sign in at the desk and prepare to enter the deliciously detailed exhibition of one man's inner visions. It's an outright revelation of sound, a veritable cornucopia overflowing... bursting the banks in an exorcism of gorgeous sounds. I don't see much talk about this one, perhaps people forgot, perhaps they moved on but one thing they should not have done is confine this guy to any particular style or "genre" as was so often the case a few years back when after two brilliant albums the public at large 'discovered' him via "Cage Fighter's Lullaby".

Displacer have not been spending their time idly, a myriad of remixes have been done by Mr. Morton yet that special space only his own work can conjure has proven more elusive than peace in the middle East. I would never have expected him to take this turn, it is a magnificently epic collection of compositions he's given us. Polished, succinct, introspective and what's more: human. If this isn't the first phase of technological symbiosis between man and machine given a clear, underlined form then I don't know what is.

Oh this one oozes confidence, it brims with maturity. "Night Gallery" is a short but incredibly sweet issuance of pure aural candy. If you don't believe me, there are more than enough clips on the tube you can check out and utilize to form your own opinion. The wait was long, I'll admit, but man did it prove to be worth it. Don't for one second think that all the descriptive words I have used mean that this creature is some kind of mellowed out borderline new age dreck, nothing could be further from the truth. Displacer have never sounded so focused, so precise nor has he been this menacing before. "Night Gallery" isn't something you use to fall asleep, it's what goes on in the twilight hours when all the world is winding down but you're unconditionally awake. God, such beautiful piano work is on display here, some of these songs sound like dirges... laments... regrets.

You won't have a single one owning this album and you'll come back to it over and over again, I surely have. That it isn't even forty-five minutes long is a total coup on the part of the band, the mission is accomplished in the time most acts spend wasting theirs via pointless eps or singles crammed with crap remixes. Displacer only give us the purest of the pure, the finely honed work of a master craftsman and if the next album takes another five years then so be it because this darkly arresting jewel is more than enough to keep me enthralled. Jun 09 2011