Prairie WWWW (落差草原WWWW) is a Taiwanese band, based in Taipei and Taichung. Their experimental recording techniques involve heavily manipulated field recordings, layered on top of jam sessions. 高粱, which means Kaoliang Liquor, is a distilled liquor made of sorghum. The story behind the title is that when the band has finished recording, they will toast around a campfire with the drug of their namesake, thanking nature for divine inspiration. Cute story.
The track proceeds with a frenetic tribal vibe, ambience layered under electric guitar riffs. 高粱 is a jam session at it’s core, but more experimental techniques are used to give the track a more unsettling and surreal feeling. The electric guitar warbles at the ends of each lick, slightly out of tune. The drumming is relentless and feels somehow ancestral. The obvious comparison is Animal Collective in its sort of sing-songy, rhythm-driven primordial energy.
The music video is an abstraction of colors, pulsing in time with the music like an iTunes Visualizer. It’s created very much in the same philosophy of 落差草原WWWW’s music — recordings of nature, but with digital/electronic manipulation. Just watch it.
You can find some more cool stuff on PrarieWWWW’s bandcamp.
