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"The Psyentist EP"

Seventeen Evergreen – The Psyentist EP
05 December 2011, 17:00 Written by Jen Long
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‘Polarity Song’, the opening track from the San Francisco duo’s new The Psyentist EP has given birth to one of the best videos this year, in my opinion. A collaboration between directors Terri Timely and artist Sarah Applebaum, it works on the concept of “Woollen terrorist warfare amidst everyday thrift shop mundanity”. It’s basically lots of people wrapped up in knitwear, kidnapping shoppers and hauling them into a woollen world of thrift. It’s kind of amazing, and it joyfully welcomed me to the world of Seventeen Evergreen.

But when stripped of its visual accompaniment, it’s good to know that ‘Polarity Song’ can still hold its own as a thrill of pulsing percussive glitches, bass creaks, and silky vocal lines. An engulfing pop chorus with an air of Yeasayer to it, you almost feel a little misled when the following track, ‘Angles’, sounds like something off the last Interpol record.

The Psyentist EP is a confusing listen where style and elements collide into something just as disorientating as their jungle of thrift. Yet this is by no means a criticism of the songwriting or musicianship that goes into the record: it’s all a very well produced affair, it’s just that the decision to place these four songs together makes it difficult to gain any flow or momentum when listening. Instead of it being the audio equivalent of reading a small novel, it’s a bit like reading a collection of short stories where the only consistency across tracks is their narrator, the slack and slivering voice of Caleb Pate.

I tried researching the definition of “psyentist”, but just found some junk on Urban Dictionary that mentioned Hunter S Thompson. Between that and the thrift, they just need a Brooklyn base and we’ve covered.

Jokes aside, everything is here to suggest Seventeen Evergreen’s next long player will be a thing worth indulging in. Let’s just hope they take the time to realise this fully.

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