Heinali and Matt Finney – Ain’t no night

I think we’ve mentioned it before, but Heinali and Matt Finney are a difficult band to catalogue. Scratch that, maybe it’s not a band, but more of a collaboration. Or a gestalt. Whatever they are, they are creating quite a lot of good experimental music, including the soundtrack to an exhibition (cheapo plug) and covering both The Cure (‘plainsong’, me fave!) and Radiohead (‘Creep’, Mexico’s fave Radiohead song…allegedly).

Anyways, the collaboration between a musical artist and a poet have yielded another set of recordings in the form of an EP (a long one, 35 minutes) called Ain’t no night. As all their previous concatenations, there’s a thick atmosphere of doom and gloom to be found.

The sound is an absolute contrast to the cover art. The empty glass (wonder what was in it?) could be the echoes and resonances the chunky atmospheric music that Heinali and Matt Finney provide. It’s seedy (all about that saturated distortion) and full of gloom (the odd drum beat, Finney’s spoken word platitudes).

The first two songs are a treat for people who like their ambient stuff loud and (sort of) droney, with ‘In all directions’ being a mammoth that goes shoegaze, postrock and then fades into ambient. It’s full of so many emotions it sets the bar high for the rest of the EP. ‘Tinderbox’ continues pushing emotions around, perhaps more on the distorted side of things, but there’s enough parts with flat surfaces on this musical climb for you to catch your breath (and then listen to some poetry). The lyrics that Finney ponders while a disembodied steam machine and a piano respond on the back. It feels like one of those “self assessment” moments in front of the mirror.

Might be projecting too much there, whoa. Track 3, ‘Ain’t no night’ is less on the thoughtful side. It explodes right away and then mixes a blues rhythm that’s only missing a harmonica and a crossroad with Ralph Macchio (go see that film). The change into blues is sweet and out of leftfield, but shows that between the ambience and wall of sound approaches preferred by Heinali, there’s room for so much more. He just seems to have replaced the slide bottle with a sweet overdrive & chorus combo. Love it.

‘Hallelujah’ is a more restrained song, even a bit low key (for a while). A good closer for a loud EP that goes for a few basic instincts (fear, doubts, etc) but strangely feels reassuring. If I could indulge in another of my daft analogies, Ain’t no night is like one of those sleepless nights, when you are just pondering about what you’ve achieved in your life and what you still have to do. Maybe a drink will help you get back to sleep. Suddenly the cover makes much more sense. Good EP from this duo, let’s hope their next collaborations keep being this inventive and full of textures.

Words: Sam.

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