Broken Spindles

Item: Broken Spindles
Author: BW Diederich

(2002)

Reviewed by BW Diederich

Discogs Apple Music TIDAL Amazon Music Spotify YouTube Music

Label Tiger StyleDecapolisSeptember 2002

electronic experimental new wave synth pop

Broken Spindles is the solo project of Joel Petersen. Not familiar to you? He plays in the much loved The Faint from Nebraska. This is his self titled debut as Broken Spindles out on the fabulous label, Tigerstyle Records from New York.

(Before you read this, I guess I should warn/apologize for gratuitous use of the word tinkle and its various permutations. The sounds Joel experiments with can only be described as "Tinkly." They sound like tinkling bells or some such thing. And the only way I knew of to describe the beats he uses was "Staticy." I'm trying to describe a normal beat with some static "surrounding" it, if that makes any sense.)

It's inevitable that this band is going to get compared to The Faint, isn't it? I'd love to look at this as objectively as possible, but every time I hear these songs I'm easily reminded of The Faint. So yes, this album sounds a lot like The Faint sans vocals, but that's not a bad thing. I happen to enjoy The Faint to be honest. The best parts, however are the ones where Joel totally leaves behind the new wave revival of The Faint for a cool take on electro/IDMish sounds.

The story of the record as told by Joel himself is that he was asked by a friend to score a film and fell so in love with the songs he wrote for the film, he was inspired to continue on and make an entire album's worth. After cobbling together 11 rough tracks, he took it to a studio where the producer learned some of the programmed parts and actually played them on actual instruments. The organic and synthesized sounds were then mixed and voila, here's Broken Spindles' debut. It's a really great idea, but you, or at least I, can't tell which is which. That is by no means a criticism, just an observation.

The two major sonic themes are tinkly sounds and the overdriven synth/guitar sound of The Faint. The best example of the former is "The Love of Foreign Film," a gorgeous take on Asian sounds as filtered through a synthesizer. "A Connection in Progress" sounds like it's straight from The Faint's album. While sort of interesting, it loses its excitement once you realize there are no vocals and this isn't, in fact, The Faint. For full disclosure's sake, there are even tracks where half is tinkly sounds and the other half is the overdriven Faint sound, i.e., "Videosection". The first minute or so is all tinkle and then the overdriven keyboards kick in only to be joined again by tinkly sounds, thus mixing the two.

Having said all that, as I mentioned before the best tracks are where Broken Spindles experiment a little. Take "A Dinner Party Ambience" for example, the first 2 or 3 minutes are built from a staticy beat. The organ sounds build until everything fades out and the last minute or so is this beautiful, really low drone. It's unlike anything the Faint did and doesn't fall prey to the dance house feel of some of the tracks. "Twitching and Relentless" is without a doubt, though, the masterpiece of the album. The last track, and coming in just a bit under 15 minutes, it's a lush mixture of all the sounds Joel has been playing with up to this point. There's the slow build with tinkle, and the overdriven Faint-like parts and then comes the straight noise. Joel brings the staticy beats closer and closer together until the whole thing is coated in a huge wash of static. There are synth squeals over top and finally silence. The last 30 seconds or so are almost completely silent, with a lone, quiet beat fading out the album.

This is an impressive debut. He obviously draws from his time with The Faint but there are lots of other influences as well. I think Joel certainly listens to or has been exposed to both noise and glitchy IDM. His record serves as an introduction to both aesthetics in parts. Call it noise-lite and glitch-lite, if you will. Definitely something to check out.