Hi Red Center
Assemble
Joyful Noise
You want math rock? You have it with Assemble by Hi Red Center. The similarities between this group and the duo Pattern is Movement are so striking that with the exception of the voices, you’d think that they are the same band.
This album is not something that you listen to in the background. Hi Red Center force you to listen as their rhythms jump all over the place and their chords move from normal to dissonant and back to normal again all in the space of a few seconds.
The last track “Pipe Dream” is the closest to a typical indie song on the entire album. Starting off with a simple acoustic guitar the music then explodes into a Who-like progression like something straight off of Tommy. Then the band does it again all the while somehow making it sound like a Sufjan Stevens track.
That’s what makes Assemble so amazing. They take a simple track and then break it up and (dare I say) assemble it back together again. Hi Red Center is like an audio Picasso. Picasso could paint beautiful realistic works, but chose not to. The same goes for Hi Red Center (who also have some beautiful cover art as well). They are too smart for formulas, so they make their own, brilliantly.
Hi Red Center: http://www.hiredcenter
