In a world of streamed singles, iPhone playlists and automated music recommendation services, the idea of the album has fallen out of favour. Sure, people keep making them, but are they being listened to in the desired manner? Well, that’s always going to fall beyond the artist’s control. But Methyl Ethel mastermind Jake Webb sees no reason to abandon the long-playing format.
“There’s definitely something wholly satisfying in listening to an album in its entirety,” he says. “Especially something that rewards the listener who begins it and finishes it.”
Methyl Ethel’s debut LP, Oh Inhuman Spectacle,gives credence to Webb’s claim. Released in early June, the 12-track album – created almost entirely by Webb – is a holistic entity. Melodically immediate and curiously progressive, it features unusual textures, structural deviation, weird time signatures and intriguing lyrical details. Along the way, the album recalls the likes of Air, Animal Collective, Connan Mockasin, Ariel Pink and Brian Eno. That said, as a whole, it’s difficult to think of contemporary records it closely mirrors.
“The album started off with me writing on a Fender Rhodes piano with electronic drum beats just put on the top,” Webb says. “I ended up steering away from that – it didn’t feel true to me, or it was distracting from the songs. I was intending to make it feel honest and not like I was trying to make it fit into anything. I just wanted to allow the songs to get across to the listener, rather than have number one singles on the radio.”
Several tracks, including singles ‘Twilight Driving’ and ‘Rogues’, and the late-album highlight ‘Artificial Limb’, reveal Webb’s aptitude for generating instantly pleasing melodies. However, from a structural and textural point of view, he avoids the temptations of convention.
“I was thinking recently about growing up and going on long car rides with my parents, listening to cassette tapes of whatever music they were into – ones that had slightly melted in the car, so everything was a little bit warped. That seems to feel the most nostalgic and the most familiar to me. In a strange way, texturally I like to fuck with things a bit to make it sound more familiar to me.”
Across the record, a range of different production flavours come into play. For instance, while ‘Rogues’ has a muted cassette tape quality, ‘Twilight Driving’ is presented in lucid and relatively pristine detail. Elsewhere, the likes of ‘Depth Perception’ and ‘Unbalancing Act’ flaunt an intoxicating reverb-drenched density.
“First and foremost, my approach is just using the tools that I have on hand,” Webb says. “So I like to marry the analogue and the digital, just because I don’t have a million dollar studio to record things perfectly. It’s sort of just trying to get the right textures that sound right for the song. So for example, drums on a couple of songs have gone back and forth between digital and analogue. It’s not a choice of using tape because it’s a cool thing to do or something.”
Throughout Oh Inhuman Spectacle,Webb crucially ensures his vocals don’t get lost. Even when swimming in reverb, the melodies remain distinct, and more often than not the lyrics can be easily deciphered.
“One of the hardest things, especially when you’re recording yourself, is to be able to listen back to a song and enjoy it outside of yourself,” he says. “So if I were to bury the vocals, it would just indicate that I’m hiding away from it. But I think that the lyric is just as important as anything else. It definitely needs to be there and be heard.”
Methyl Ethel’s Oh Inhuman Spectacle is out now through Dot Dash/Remote Control.
