The Audubon goes aural on Clyde Moop’s latest release, but Wavy Lab Volume 2 Phase 1 is no run-of-the-mill audio book. Instead, it’s an immersive sonic environment populated by mallards and Molly Soda, pekins and pot smoking, sandwiches and “stuff for sale.” Anyone familiar with the Scrummage and #CoOwnaz-affiliated producer would not expect anything less, but Moop’s latest project is a welcome escape from the drudgery of winter’s bluster, both for longtime fans and new listeners alike.
Moop plays the part of DJ David Attenborough, marrying the hard-hitting bounce of ghettotech with some fairly left-field subject matter. On the whole though, the record is less obeisant of that movement’s original tenets than the first installment of Wavy Lab was. Here the beats don’t always align with a rhythmic grid, and though the unsteady canter of the multiple pulses sometimes resembles juke or footwork, WLV2 P1 is geared more for the classroom than the club.
According to Alex Lauer, the artist behind Clyde Moop, the album’s more mellow vibes and mottled textures were designed to prime listeners for this edifying but enjoyable experience: “From the perception of a perfectly proportioned black Labrador Retriever, Wavy Lab Volume 2 Phase 1 can guide anyone through a peaceful and educational summary of the duck pen.”
No lesson plan would be complete without visual aids, however, and WLV2 P1 has been released with a video for opening track, “Quantities and Breeds.” The clip, directed by Conor Edwards (who is also Lauer’s bandmate in Lord Scrummage), uses the visual syntax of 24/7 cable news channels, amateur camcorder footage, digital word art, computer-generated 3-D renderings, and sourced recordings of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s Rubber Duck sculpture to mimic the music’s interlocking but out-of-sync sonic layers.
But just as the scrolling news ticker shifts unexpectedly from humdrum pabulum about duck breeds to a sudden, ALL-CAPS hysterical alert concerning (what else?) a duck saving the day, so too does WLV2 P1 offer surprises in its arrangements and themes. Disembodied, pitch-shifted samples blurt repeated (sometimes nonsense) motifs such as “Bebo” or the artist’s name, completely out-of-step with the already complex background, like so many ducks quacking in a pen.
As the album progresses, it also moves a bit beyond its initial anatine theme and revisits ideas introduced on the first Wavy Lab, from drug use and trade to burying treasure. It’s anybody’s guess where the next installment of the series will take Clyde Moop, but one thing’s for sure: we won’t be crying fowl.
Stream the Detroit Music Magazine premiere of Clyde Moop’s Wavy Lab Volume 2 Phase 1 below: