In December 2009, Wot Gorilla EP, by Wot Gorilla? (uhm, Genesis?) filled some bits of our computers and some physical space as well for the first time. In 2010 we’ve got a second EP with a cover and title that really scares me, mostly at this exact moment of my life. That’s the reason why I basically decided on talking about their first EP instead (their second EP is very cool, though).

It’s strange how asymmetry is born like ideas in the human mind. We’re all taught concepts of ideal squares, couples and perfect complements, and this is why I basically believe that thinking in syncopate is a deliberate act of ‘thinking-out-of-the-box’; Wot Gorilla? is a good proof of this through sounds.

With music that could be depicted as quicksand in different densities, Wot Gorilla? break their own schemes through every sound, where guitars are the main guests. Sharp sounds carve dreamy melodies, the ones that become the lead to the strongest part of the band, that is, bass and drums (as a note, I really loved their guitar bass sound: accurate, strong, and perfectly balanced). The voice may also become an accessory to guitars.

I can imagine a stave full of irregular words as triplets, syncopates, fuses and sixteenth notes and silences arranged where no silence is expected. This is nothing but a blueprint to an orgy of music notes. I mean orgy in a good sense (is there any good sense to that anyway?).

Roads may not be a straight line, and may be made of different materials. Through this band, I think of a relative universe (Einstein included), where worlds can bend at will and find new shapes, moving from one way to another, where each listener is bound to choose a landmark to add that rational hint to the song.

This whole sound is magically achieved through ‘special’ effects applied to all instruments involved in every track, and I must say drums have quite an outstanding performance. This whole description made me think of their 3rd track, ‘Q W E R T Y’ (funny, Foucault started one of his major books, L’Archiviste, using the same reference to a keyboard, then talking about words, their history and their power as elements of our subconscious, just ranting…)

There’s a special assembly of sound I truly loved from Wot Gorilla?, and this is what I call the ‘Watson & Creek’ event, where after some time, effort and reason spent on investigation, a random event comes and puts everything into place, unveiling the answer we’ve been looking for so badly. It’s like that DNA model falling to the floor and revealing its true shape out of the blue. That’s math rock, and that’s the genre Wot Gorilla? explores so well. Another example to this unnecessary rant? Just listen to track 2, ‘6 Double 5 3 2 1’

As previously mentioned, guitars (and sometimes an organ making its special feature) display the lead to all other instruments in the band. These sounds become too the beautiful element of every song, as the leading heart of this group. Even when they may seem ‘experimental’ and sometimes with no apparent reason to go up or down for a fraction (I love that), guitars remain bright and colorful in the middle of confusion, like that compass in your pocket finally showing up when you need it the most (‘Cornelius’).

Even when math rock was better described by the sentence ‘I don’t feel a thing when you play your music’, I guess it takes more than a few syncopate sounds and random thoughts to become an outstanding math rocker. Wot Gorilla? brings about carefully a way to explode, a way to understand alternative roads to think, feel and (mostly) perceive music, offering honest sounds to their audience. We’re talking about hearts.

If geeky references really bored you to death, I apologize. I blame Jung.

Words: Tonan

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