Sparkling Wide Pressure recently released an abstract assortment of experimental music called Leave Out the White Nights, an auditory experience that coexists alongside the visual artwork of sole band member Frank Baugh. The album is full of sound collages that most listeners will probably find unsettling and difficult to pin under any common genre. Although it’s hard to categorize, the entire body of work still has a unique continuity. After browsing over Frank Baugh’s paintings, the creative direction of the album became clearer. Leave Out the White Nights has a thematic overlap with his beautiful artwork, which makes his strange flavor of music easier to digest.
To understand Sparkling Wide Pressure, first check out Frank Baugh’s visual work, which is actually quite good. He uses different paints and canvas styles to evoke a broad spectrum of emotions through very simple scenes and concepts. The music featured on Leave Out the White Nights complements his visual style well, which leads me to believe it’d do well as background music in his own personal art museum. Without a visual accompaniment, though, the album is just too lonely to enjoy by itself.
Frank Baugh is all over the place, instrumentally speaking. The release favors dissonant synthesizers, offbeat drum patterns, heavily reverberated vocals and unusual samples. Occasionally, we get acoustic instruments like guitar, flute and percussion. Lyrically, there isn’t much to follow. Vocals are sparse and difficult to comprehend. Most of the songs, like “Ha Ha Hassays” are pure gibberish blanketed under piles of seemingly random sounds. The only song with a rounded lyrical performance is “An Easy Shade of Whim,” but it fails to deliver because of its pitchy delivery. Overall, the release is very hard to recommend for everyday listening.
It’s common to mistake “weird” for poor sound quality. The album is mixed well, but it’s incredibly difficult to notice its great production work. Unfortunately, one of its strongest qualities is overshadowed by all of its shortcomings. The carousel of sound is a headache. Some tracks feature short, dizzying loops. Every track presents repetitive, eerie illusions that seem to last forever, despite the short track lengths. Ear fatigue is a big problem with this album.
Aside from the album’s harrowing tone, there’s also an unclear sense of direction. Some artists tend to leave fans a stray path through their musical puzzle. Sparkling Wide Pressure chose to push us down a dark hallway and toss the key instead. It’s a bold move that’s been done many times. Frank has excellent creativity, but his vision is off the rails. It’s so far out there, I cannot even begin to understand it, though I’d love to.
His visual work is really impressive, but his artistry doesn’t translate into music very well. Generally speaking, Leave Out the White Nights is an interesting conversation piece. Baugh appears to be a diligent artist with a strong will, but without a summary or explanation of the album, the listener is left on his own to interpret it. This may have been the goal from the start.
