Review by Vince Leigh
This is yet another release from NISSAN: Unstoppable, aka Morgan Quinn who not so long ago dropped an EP, Welcome to the Glove Department, a set of tracks that seemed to coalesce into a unified whole by the sheer drive of the artist’s experimental intentions, showcasing a spirited flurry of invention that is replicated with this new batch.
This three-song set kicks off with Yikel and its introductory segmented guitar doodling over a light industrial background that soon evolves into a part that is pleasing in its melodic looping and its brevity, allowing for the following section, a piano supported refrain, to sound almost positively mainstream.
However, the artist has other things in store for us, as is typical of his inconclusive style, as a straight-up funk groove, complete with a complimenting vocal part, ensues, after which we are returned to what can be termed the centrifugal element of the aforementioned melody loop, one that, surprise-surprise, mutates into a sonic meltdown of sorts, one that has a raison d’être; it flows, in that same light industrial manner, into the following track.
Michael begins with this same ominous texture but does have a less gloom shaded melodic line hovering across the top and, in fact, veers into a mix of otherworldly choral touches with a smattering of guitar, though its more vital ingredient seems to be the rap section, proving once again the risk of anticipating just where Quinn’s artistic intentions might take him, and us.
The preacher’s announcement during the introduction of the final track Yikes seems to sanction the artist’s predilection for robust creative ramblings and genre gene-splicing, with the line ‘there is nothing like the sight of an amputated spirit’, evoking a similar sense of daring and conscious dereliction on the part of the musician, which is just fine.
Yikes reveals a penchant for the vaguely psychedelic, with an array of interwoven aspects throwing one off the scent a little. But the guitar thrashing at the midway point of the track seems to fall in line with this progressive rock flavour, one that ultimately ends with a series of vocal work, with a fragility at its core, one that is finalised by a less refined vocal snippet, as though the mask of studio gamesmanship has been torn off to reveal the musician’s more vulnerable spirit.
