Naked Acid, the follow-up to 2007's Valet debut Blood is Clean, functions with the same parts-into-a-whole synergy as its creator. The first five songs work almost exclusively through distended sounds, creeping up through patient drones, manipulated vocals, and echo-in-canyon drums to slow payoffs. The sixth song, "Fire", is a lovesick ballad, an elliptical guitar/voice/tape-hiss first-take that Owens admits is about giving up drugs. The final song explodes the sounds of the first five beneath a noisy, throbbing beat, like Neil Campbell's Astral Social Club ripping Valet apart and spinning everything back on the faster reel. On first listen, such a sequence may seem like a ruse or even an apology: After 35 minutes of long-form washes and only slightly comprehensible vocals, "Fire", the shortest thing here and the most straightforward Valet song released to date, could be an attempt at relief or a stab at a single (which it was, in 2007, as a 7" for Burnt Brown Sounds). The same goes for beat-and-synth closer "Streets", a track that could give attention-deficient mp3 bloggers a toe-tap inlet into a record they'd otherwise ignore. Or perhaps Owens is offering herself an outlet for how future Valet records may sound.
Editado por Kranky en 2008.
