Mully & Sculder Release “Heartbreaking” - an in-Depth and Penetrating Purview
By Keir Nicoll
In “Heartbreaking,” Sarah Wheeler sings, “the sound of groundbreaking/is just what you are/heartbreaking.” There is spare bass, as in the Cure, punctuated by hard-hitting percussion, wailing guitars, backing the heartfelt vocals. “I want to know,” repeats over and over again, “everything about you.” There is a wash of synths about this track. She sings, “maybe it's just a fantasy,” and the music itself sounds like a fantastical synth-track. It rends open the conflicts and complications of love, as attraction and destruction collide in this song. It sounds somewhat like a dance track, done with live instruments, as well as drum-machines, or programming.
This is a powerful duo. Sarah Wheeler on vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming and drums and Aaron Trory on vocals, bass, guitar and keyboard. These musicians continue in the vein of those who have mastered the approach to polyphony in their skills and produce a sound that is reliant upon all of the elements coming together in a sparse yet complex fabric of sound-texture. This is just their musicianship. In the lyrical and emotional approach, as well as the instrumentation, there is a synth-pop and new wave into a contemporary flair, as they include their musical creation, with an in-depth exploration of the human condition – as some of the best bands of these genres have mined.
As far as the pop-culture references go, Mully & Sculder are indebted to the unnerving yet familiar X-files, which was filmed in their hometown of Vancouver. There is obviously some kind of post-modern, mash-up, referentiality, happening here. And of course, Vancouver would be the place to do it. This band has been said to be infectious, like Depeche Mode, earnest in the longing of the Cure and boldly experimental, in the nature of David Bowie. This reviewer would have-it that they sound, in their 'ground-breaking' vocals, like Siouxsie and the Banshees, or even the one and only Grimes.
Some say this genre is lost but those of us from that era know that there is always a place for dark glasses – onstage at night. There is a sense of an exploration of the human core under the duress of strained relationships. These can be between people who know each other well, or who are even estranged by the complicities of the dating scene, where people align themselves for temporary forays into love and find themselves cast aside, before too long. They purloin the experience of universal knowledge for the case of their directives in the lustful-world. There is definitely an 80s undertone to this track, although they are obviously trying to push it forward, especially, with their inhabitation of currently cultivated instruments and approaches.