NaGUST:

Trioxide

NaGUST—an independent electronic music artist who is so prolific, I’m beginning to run out of clever ways to begin these reviews. But it’s true—on average, across her entire library, starting with her MoonSpeak material, she has been producing albums on a bi-monthly basis, and after taking a short six month hiatus, here she is again, out with her latest EP, Trioxide. This’ll mark her second release under the NaGUST alias, after she impressed with The Features EP just earlier this summer, and this sort of rapid-fire rate at which she chooses to release this stuff has become a sort of trademark of hers. Making music really is her hobby, and as everyone knows, if you keep flexing that muscle, you’re generally gonna get better and better at it. But just working out isn’t good enough without a steady and balanced diet to supplement it. Even if you work out for three hours a day, if you’re all you eat is junk food in between, your efforts will have been a complete waste of time.

Right away, and I’m just gonna come right out with it, I was underwhelmed by this EP. But just to make things clear—I did not go into this experience expecting to be blown away by a record less than fifteen minutes long. I’m simply not huge on the idea of releasing such dinky projects, especially if they offer nothing substantial or interesting. NaGUST had a clever concept in mind—an album called TRIOxide, with a trio of songs that all have parenthetical “O” words interlaced within the titles that, when read in lockstep, reads a little secret message of sorts. Additionally, as both the title and the cover art would suggest, the three songs represent the oxygen atoms that make up the album’s eponym, and are thus interconnected—as such, the three songs all use the same instrumentation. Clearly, quite a bit of thought went into this gimmick, and it’s an admittedly clever one, but I honestly don’t think nearly as much critical thought went into the music itself.

As I said before, each of the three songs, (“Can’t Move (On)”, “Ignore (Our) Faults”, and “(Own) Up To Yourself”) use the same instrumentation throughout to sell the idea that these songs are one. This is driven home if the parenthetical “oxygen words” are read as one title—“On Our Own,” suggesting that the EP should be looked upon as one whole song. Fair enough, right? So, given the very stripped-down nature of these tracks, I’ll still refer to the EPs parts individually, but I will be sure to evaluate it by the sum of its parts as well. Given the simplistic nature of the songs, it’s gonna be very difficult to sort of expound upon them in any critically analytical way, so if my descriptions are at all incoherent, I apologize for that, but again, this EP was a little tricky to work with.

This record is comprised of this one very sluggish, ethereal beat with this drawn-out synth chord melody, trudging along this giant foggy sea of mud, after waking up in a marsh, all groggy and hung over and shit. And not a pretty Amazonian marsh, either, but one of these lame, shitty-ass swampy marshes we have here in Michigan. The ones devoid of life and all things beautiful. It’s the simplicity of this first track that I find the least appealing—the bare-bones, percussive high-hat beat is too repetitive with little variation throughout, making the entire piece sort of drag on incessantly. Absolutely nothing of interest happens in this track, even in the climax, where the two synth parts sort of coalesce in what’s probably one of the most yawn-inducing climaxes NaGUST has ever presented. When the song ends, it just ends—and I know, I’ve said it many times before—NaGUST has never been privy to the art of ending songs satisfactorily, and doesn’t ever really segue two tracks together. But this is a particularly egregious example, because if you’re going to drive home SO HARD the concept of an interconnected trifecta of songs, and not even have the songs segue into each other, that’s just a tragically missed opportunity there.

Part two, “Ignore (Our) Faults,” is what I find to be the weakest track on the record, and it is most certainly not a fault that I’m willing to ignore. It’s a shorter, slightly more up-tempo version of the last part, while maintaining the sort of unpleasant, hung over atmosphere. And there’s really not much else to say about it. I mean, it sounds like someone tried to remix the first track, but just gave up. It adds nothing on top of what has been already established by the first track. No new perspectives. No new cadences. Just a slightly faster, hiccup-y remix. Despite its short length, not even reaching two and a half minutes, the song feels much longer than that. So by the time I’ve reached the third track, I’m already left severely underwhelmed by two thirds. And this final track, “(Own) Up To Yourself,” isn’t doing the EP any favors, either. It’s a down-tempo version of the first track—nothing more, nothing less. It does refreshingly introduce some new instrumentation, however: The song plays itself out with a piano denouement, which, in itself, was nothing special, but wait—wait—What? WHAT? Did she just end that song with an arpeggio!? You mean, she didn’t just fade it out? I mean, it didn’t really work, but… It was an honest attempt. Props to that, I guess.

Even when looked at as a whole, this EP really just didn’t do it for me. In general, the music sounded uninspired and in serious need of polishing. I loved the concept of having three interconnected songs, where each one sort of lives off the other, but the tracks found herein are just weak, weak, and weak. Ugly, distasteful instrumentation coupled with the fact that the inadequate melody of the first song ended up being a recurring motif lead to nonstop dissatisfaction and boredom. She could’ve done so much else to glue these songs together in some way, but she took the lamest possible route. Ultimately, in all three of the times I have visited this EP, I was left very bored. The beats were not offensive to my ears, by any means… In fairness, I feel as though there’s capable material hidden in the depths, but NaGUST did nothing with it, and I gained nothing from listening to it as a result. Nonetheless, I’m not gonna say anything like, “I have little hopes for NaGUST’s next release,” or “I’m very disappointed with this EP.” Because it’s obvious that she was just trying to experiment with a few concepts. I just personally did not find any of them at all meritorious. So I don’t think this release portends any future duds—in the grand scheme of things, it’s a mild and easily concealable blemish.

And I know NaGUST realizes she could’ve done a lot better with this EP. I know that, ‘cause she, like, told me, and shit. So it’s okay.

I’m feeling a strong four to a light five on this EP. Didn’t like it very much. Wasn’t impressed, but I wasn’t really let down, either. I’m willing to overlook or forgive it just on the basis that it’s a very small, kind of insignificant release, and it was plagued by a very restrictive set of rules imposed by NaGUST herself—assuming the concept was developed before the music itself was. Either way, I wouldn't take this rating to heart. It's really no biggie.

And, uh, wow… I made this way longer than I wanted/expected to… Oops.

4/10