Sitting somewhere between ambient and alt-rock, Got.Knees – all we know about him/her is that its a solo project from the UK – has released a new EP, A Century Of Middle Class Love.
Talking of the release, Got.Knees says its ‘Inspired by the events that precipitated the outbreak of war in 1914, A Century of Middle Class Love 4-track EP is bursting with inspiration, contemplating personal and national honour, human desire and enthusiasm for sacrifice.’
Opener Unhinged has exactly that quality – the woozy, slightly wonky chords and insistent clicking rhythm give the whole thing this uneasy feeling, while ‘The Meltdown of Van Moltke the Younger’, named after the German General who’s ineffective leadership and age (not helped by a stroke) led to defeat in the Marne offensive in 1914 (damn it I do my research) is based around this repetitive piano pattern, which as it unfurls allows this skittish jazz like figure to catch the ear, with the understated drums and an electronic hue adding to what appears to be more of a slow descent more than a meltdown.
Once you start rotting, you don’t stop features this clicking, almost like the inexorable ticking of time, as strings shimmer and weave in and out of eachother, little fragments of melody flickering through on the harp. Closer Love Battle (A Century of Middle Class Love) with its hymnal opening and iunderstated strings that bleed into eachother, somehow sum up the helpless, hopeless nature of the descent to war. As if an antibody to film of cheering soldiers on their way to war, before the slaughter began.
It’s an emotive and descriptive EP that has enough to touch and move you. Check it out, here
