Description
Whistler have been using the phrase “biscuit house music” to describe their songs. If you try to figure out what it means, through internet searches or by asking the band directly, it just opens up all these other questions, about solar systems and habitats and inspiration. But the main thing it made me think of is the witch’s house in Hansel and Gretel. And the magic/poison of that house is remarkable, but the part of that fairytale I think about the most is when the siblings overhear their parents planning to abandon them in the forest, and they try to change the outcome, as small and powerless as they are. I feel like this idea of inheriting ill will and the search for small gestures to sidestep these plans is so important to this record. Which is a massive record, soaring and precise and SO SOLID. Like the instruments and amps emerge and jostle for space, even through the tinny phone speaker. An earlier Whistler EP asked “How is the end of the world contained in your everyday?” and it is a question I now hold up to every movie I see, ever book I read, and for sure every record I hear. I think it’s a good surprise that Whistler ask this question and then decide to make such a well-structured and durable record, even as the record acknowledges there’s no need for durability anymore. Like you kind of have to look to other eras to find music that sounds like this, not in a nostalgic way but in a no-one-would-have-the-audacity-these-days way. Those irresistable, world-swallowing Happy Mondays songs, the conviction and force of Failure maybe. ‘Telltale Sauce’ does that satisfying thing where it pleads for change – for one solid thing just once in this life – and then delivering that change.
