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MH-287 Pregnant - Pottery Mill  Pregnant returns with Pottery Mill, a masterful fifteen track full-length that revels in genre-bending and sonic risk-taking. The voice of Daniel Trudeau defines the Pregnant sound. Vocals that reminds of a spaced-out Neil Young, stuttering glitch-hop beats, and psychedelic instrumentation built around looped guitars and keyed instruments are present throughout the album. Life in Northern California's Sierra Nevada Foothills once again drives the songwriting, as themes of nature, isolation, disintegrating relationships and struggle fight their way through the figurative songwriting's ambiguity and abstraction. Daniel's brother, Matthew Trudeau has been adding his support to Pregnant's live show as of late, and shows up quite seamlessly on many of the Pottery Mill tracks. The album's freewheeling production, abstract lyrics, and fearless audio collage are both captivating and addictive. Pottery Mill is Pregnant's most cohesive statement to date. |
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| Reviews Summary |
| His abstract pop songs are built on layers of nuanced guitar fragments and stuttering hip hop rhythms and his tightly looped performances are nothing short of transcendent - Portals / Your sonic voyage awaits ... from the album Pottery Mill - Spacelab / a curious musical tapestry - Delusions of Adequacy / In some sense, Pottery Mill is a callback to early psych - In Your Speakers |
| Reviews | |
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| Pregnant, the moniker Daniel Trudeau adopted when he was about to become a father must be out of date by now but his imagination remains fertile as he draws on a broad palette of genres, instruments and effects to produce more muddled DIY compositions on this second release on Mush Records. Pottery Mill continues on the same experimental path as 2011’s Life Hard : I Try but it is not as focussed or robust. Instead of jumping assuredly from one unique sound to the next these pieces drift with little structure or direction. The album opens with twinkling synths rudely interrupted by trumpet and random noises. Just when it feels like the tune is coming together it fizzles out, and the album continues in similar disjointed fashion. Trudeau incessantly moves from one idea to the next randomly mangling sounds and throwing more ingredients into the melting pot. He aims to combine traditional songwriting, pure vocals, and warped experimentation. He succeeds on the last point but the songs get rather lost in the mix. He has a distinctive voice, light and dreamy, but often it wafts through a clutter of loops and melodies, words barely audible. There appears to be a beautiful song at the heart of Crush On but it is overcrowded with snippets of piano, beats and electronics. Surreal has the makings of an uplifting nu-disco track but sounds like a rough demo version. All too often the songs get garbled with too many elements or trip themselves up. When the music does come together the results are striking. The title track gives more prominence to Trudeau’s vocals which flow gently over meandering guitar and loops that build then disintegrate. On Silhouette haunting flute and hypnotic beats build up in a mysterious instrumental interlude. All in all Pottery Mill is a curious musical tapestry. - Delusions of Adequacy |
