Pat Jordache – Future Songs

Future Songs was first released as a low-quality, self-mastered cassette last summer. It looked destined to remain in such rough form when Pat Jordache’s laptop was tea-leafed from a cafe, till an old Mediafire account containing the original files was exhumed. They’ve been given a wipe-down and a tune-up for this re-release, and praise Constellation for ensuring this remarkable record didn’t languish as the preserve of Montreal hipsters.

It’s a fascinating listen, its peculiarities encapsulated by the unclassifiable closer ukUUU: six and a half minutes of string bending, field recordings, machine song and Jordache’s idiosyncratic croon. Yet despite its unorthodoxies, Future Songs remains ‘pop’, albeit in the same sense that John Maus or tUnE-YArDs (Merrill Garbus and Jordache previously played together in the also-ace Sister Suvi) are pop, with accessible melodies filtered through layers of hiss, fuzz and reverb. The results are comfortingly familiar, yet innovative and rather special. [Chris Buckle]