In anticipation of the imminent release of their debut full length LP, Welcome To Bobby’s Motel, Montreal’s Pottery has released a pair of tracks with accompanying videos that outline a thesis centered around the perils and pleasures of recreational substance use. If these two tracks are any indication, the full album is going to be a wild ride.
“Take Your Time” is a glitchy new wave trip packed with enough nervous energy to power an apartment building. The track begins with spiky guitar and squishy synths that play like Devo fronted by Andy Gill as machine gun percussion perforates the entire structure. There’s a menacing undercurrent throughout that abruptly breaks into the exuberantly sunny hook “take your time!”, repeated in chorus and backed by startlingly upbeat instrumentation. But even as the track begins to open up the jagged edge remains, a subtle threat casting a long shadow over the good-time high.
The accompanying video amplifies everything about the track with a helter-skelter narrative loosely glued together but irresistible in its unfettered construction. A psychedelic amalgamation that smashes the high contrast visual nihilism of Queens Of The Stone Age’s “Go With The Flow” with the Cheshire Cat absurdity of Monty Python’s Flying Circus as a hirsute and chemically altered protagonist willingly falls headlong into never ending syndicated alternate realities radiating from a motel room CRT. Framed in this way the track’s title and signature hook become less of a warning and more a bit of sage advice. Turn on, tune in, drop out but don’t rush things. Take your time and enjoy the trip.
The b-side track is a different animal. “Texas Drums Pt I” goes hard into new wave territory, coupling the infectiously danceable beat with novelty lyrics about drummers hailing from the Lone Star State. The Andy Gill style guitar is back in full effect along with gang-vocal shout-a-longs and enough cowbell to make Christopher Walken blush. The entire production moves with a fidgety, ramshackle locomotion that so vividly recalls The Brian Jonestown Massacre that I half expected Anton Newcombe to abruptly interrupt the funk to extol the virtues of bell-bottomed jeans. At just barely three minutes in length I can honestly say this track is too short, but I fully expect Pottery to draw this one out into a killer jam session at live shows to really get the audience moving.
White makeup has been traditionally worn by mimes for thousands of years to amplify the facial expressions of the performers, and here the effect is leveraged by Pottery to underscore the emotional highs of a snowblind night out on the town. The video for “Texas Drums Pt I” follows a pair of powdered-up low-budget mimes through a series of loosely connected surrealistic vignettes in a similar fashion as the acid-soaked journey depicted in “Take Your Time.” The inspiring substance is obviously different this time, and the always-on propulsive nature of the action reflects the can’t-stop-won’t-stop nightclub jitters invoked by the music. “Texas Drums Pt I” is up-for-anything, high energy social indulgence in audio form and its downright addictive.
Welcome To Bobby’s Motel is out April 10th on Partisan Records. You can keep up with Pottery on Instagram.
