Restiform Bodies
TV Loves You Back
By Vish Khanna

With their glitch-y, ambient noise-infused beats backing equally distorted vocal flows, Oakland’s Restiform Bodies present the perfectly imperfect soundtrack to an information overloaded yet, ironically, attention deficit addled culture. On certain tracks, Passage, Telephone Jim Jesus and Bomarr conjure Sage Francis fronting Animal Collective, and their sharp rhymes and exhilarating soundscapes mix punk rage with playful sonic experimentation. Take “Foul,” which captures the manic energy of digital toys running amok while Passage drops illness between dizzying, ever-changing choruses anchored by emo melodies. A bit of Tortoise infiltrates the irreverence of “A Pimp-Like God” and the group’s obsession with blind capitalism on TV Loves You Back climaxes with the dark double-dose of the comically tinged “Panic Shopper” and the creepy voyeurism of “Consumer Culture Wave,” which examines the commodification of sex. Restiform Bodies generate a peculiar heat, mimicking the flickering glow from televisions that strikes culture vulture eyeballs and bitingly calling Western society on our complacency. (Anticon)
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