Eric Copeland - "Hermaphrodite"

Eric Copeland - Tree Aliens (Paw Tracks 2007)

Eric Copeland - Hermaphrodite / Paw Tracks

It took a long time for me to warm up to Black Dice, but once I finally understood that the noise was an end unto itself rather than a means to something "greater" à la post-rock, I began to appreciate what they were doing more. I appreciated their hardcore background, and how by some miracle that eventually led to Beaches & Canyons and an EP I used to loathe in Miles of Smiles and Broken Ear Record and all these other challenging musical experiments I'm still really getting familiar with.

It's an inevitable intro, but speaking of Hermaphrodite without the context of Eric Copeland's day job is less impossible and more necessary as a frame of reference for the experiments he proffers here. Somewhere between the primordial muck of Terrestrial Tones and the ever-evolving terrain of the Black Dice sound, Copeland has made his first full-length.

Interestingly, it isn't so far removed from Person Pitch that namedropping Panda Bear's album here is a stretch. Part of that can be attributed to the fact that, you know, it's Paw Tracks and everybody on the label hangs out with one another and their sounds rub off into one big noisy happy freak-folk party and all that. Part of it can also be attributed to the fact that Hermaphrodite rarely sounds menacing or even resigned and contemplative. Like Person Pitch, it's fun imagining what Black Dice would sound like if only brother Bjorn Copeland and Aaron Warren were there to do the noodling. There's a lot less inward meditation than on Black Dice records, and this ebullience (in its own way, of course) exemplified during tracks like "Green Burrito" marks a significant departure in tone.

Of course, there's a strong possibility that I'm totally wrong and that Hermaphrodite is really just a preview of what lies ahead. Are these castaways for something else? Are they mere millimeters of smiles and nothing more? Each of these dozen songs does its best to carve out a unique aural angle in the repetition of ideas. Each evolves in its own way, but never does it evolve too far or stray from where it starts; "Scumpipe" is an excellent example of this, all frayed electronic wires and barely-there beats. Same thing with the faded-in siren stuttering of "Dinca." It's frightening, but the melody looped underneath it adds a funhouse feel to what would otherwise be a song full of fear in a way that blurs the line between seriously macabre and humorously macabre. Here, it is easy to tell the difference.

The press page for this record explains that, "Like a good mix tape, Hermaphrodite flips the listener with each new song, engaging them to keep up, make the connections, and, ultimately, enjoy." Yes, ultimately we should be enjoying Hermaphrodite not for the reasons that, well, he's in Black Dice and he's on Paw Tracks. We should be enjoying this for its twisted human voices and its squishy bubbles in the waters of "Wash Up" and Southern folk sing-a-long-gone-awry "Spacehead" and African carnival "La Booly Boo" and every other sonic snippet puréed into the mix. There may be a new 'Dice record coming in October, and I'll be excited to hear how it sounds... But for now, Hermaphrodite showcases the solo talents of one of that band's creative forces. Long may it linger.