The Kiss That Took A Trip
Electroforest
(Autoproducido)

Spain’s The Kiss That Took A Trip is the brainchild of M.D. Trello, the sole producer/player/composer on his new album, Electroforest.

“Electroforest: Entrance” opens with a soft vocal, swirling bass synth and piano. It’s liltingly pretty, but overstays its welcome I feel. The second song, “Tidy up You Pig,” is much more dramatic with programmed toms, noisy guitars and various lines of melody creating a scary instrumental (you can see Trello’s admitted Trent Reznor influences here).

The low pipe plonk of “Snowstorm” has cello-like cuts then progresses to a main moving section of a very sweet light melody with subtle drums under. It’s one of the better tunes here, a very atmospheric effective instrumental. Then we get “Malice” following, a plinky tapestry of single-note keys playing opposite melodies on top of one another with some rockin’ drum programming and riffing guitar. These two instrumentals, appearing about half way, make a solid linchpin to Electroforest. They match with a later “The Thriving Landlords,” a sprawling instrumental of many changes, which I like just as much.

Though I do like the discordant riff that “Jackie o Lantern” is built on (funny title), it’s just lots of washy synth stuff going nowhere until the spoken vocal at its tail. “Amplification of the Senses” is pretty neat with some strummed guitar and probably the best (and clearest vocals) from Trello.

When he is exploring instrumental layering and is not so stuck on imparting a concept that maybe he’ll only ever understand, The Kiss That Took A Trip’s Electroforest is damn good stuff.