Review: Dave Welder – Ghostwriting!

Dave Welder are a shapeshifting, Brighton-based collective who released seven records between August and November this year (no doubt there's more to come). This review centres on record number five, Ghostwriting!, whose soundscapes are what you might expect from an amorphous group with a nonlinear notion of release-scheduling: splatters of manipulated beats, estranged slices of voice, melted chimes and scorched synthesiser motifs, all unfolding with a dream logic that staggers in and out of the dark, between limping rhythms and dubious open tranquility. It’s possible that this music was assembled over several years, and that the rapid rate of release is just misdirection. Yet the effect of the overwhelm, of having fleetingly acquainted with one record before the sudden appearance of the next, gives each one a certain frantic, unrefined energy. Instruments are doppler-melted and echo-smeared, while improvised melodies possess a certain late-night quality, played via reflexes softened by the small hours. I’d love to know how these recording sessions felt. What was the vibe? Did any single member of Dave Welder have a clear comprehension of what was happening? That’s one interpretation of the title, perhaps: none of the players feel capable of claiming authorship, instead punting responsibility back to a spectral something hung behind, above, or deep within the collective.

In terms of highlights, one-two of "G0DERL7" and "G0derly und Kar1m” always gets me. The former centres on a slurred soloing guitar over a broken beat, with reverb congealing into faux-choirs at the edges, while the latter feels like a remix of the same, the languidness replaced with a spritely chatter of synthesiser and percussive delays, occasionally retreating inside the tinny fidelity of an 80s TV set speaker. The drum loop drifts around the frame, losing and gathering solidity, which feeds into an overall sense of scrambled chronology – some sounds feel hauled up from archival cassettes, while others make stylistic references to early radiophonic experiments. Time doesn’t march forward, but splays in all directions. There’s something nauseating about standing at the intersection within a chronological non-space, as memories fold over themselves and melt into eachother. A personal recollection from the 60s collides with an emulated TV theme from the late 70s, while tape delay experiments spiral atop quantising grid of post-00s home recording. When the album stops – after the swirling piano/string orchestrations of "Pre ANN0", which feels reminiscent of Babe Terror's sombre psychedelic collages – gravity seems to rush back in again. The revived linearity of time feels momentarily suspect. It’s akin to being caught daydreaming, and the giddy transition from introspection to the hard edges of full consciousness. Only once you've surfaced again can you comprehend the depth of the descent.