Album Review: Great Earthquake - Mind Maps

Great Earthquake is Noah Symons. That's it. Almost unclassifiable as an artist, Symons proceeds to loop a wide array of acoustic instruments, vocals and field recordings into a whole that oft-times beggars belief. His Drawings debut of 2010 was a harbinger of things to come; Mind Maps is a further movement forward in creativity and confidence, out of this world and into the next.

The cacophony of the opening and title track quickly brings to mind the kind of freak-form practitioners that are equally adept at defying tradition and categorisation – Akron/Family, Tune-Yards and Gang Gang Dance – yet holds a sonic tenderness, a honeyed malaise brought on by the synth burblings in the final third. The warm harmonics continue on Do.Make, the female vocals a comfortable, melodic cocoon that interweaves with the oscillating percussion, building in effervescent intensity and euphoria. Appropriate is a deliberately fun experience, an eclectic melange of sounds that succeeds in moving the body electric. Human Activity is almost a misnomer, so in tune with the wild it appears to be – field recordings flitter around the melody, dragging the tune into the wilderness never to return. In Nature (Song For Owen) procures hesitancy, then urgency, Symons' tapestry of sound emitting an epiphany in progress. Even Mountain Dweller, starting out with ephemeral drone, becomes a claustrophobic mind stretch, crowding on all sides, offering little space to breath. 

Mind Maps is an album that never sits still, with so many ideas zinging off in all directions, that it can be a little daunting for some. Don't be dissuaded, though; in Great Earthquake, Australia has an energetic, creative force that is only getting started.