Review Summary: Dale Cooper’s debut is an enigma; exposing the human soul to the convolution of the natural elements; granting the listener the profundity of the deepest sentiment.
Many artists often endeavour to create a sonic masterpiece with their first release; chopping and changing, picking and polishing, nearly always in vain. Not that latent musicians are expected to be prodigious by any means. However what often belies these novices is a meticulous meandering of production tools, which all too frequently draws scrutiny to an embryonic technical proficiency. Bands which are currently the undisputed paragons of the genre often debuted with a clashing cacophony of chords, mistimed drum fills, and incompetent vocals. A band rarely displays the aptitude of experience, and the precision granted by years of refinement on their debut.
However, on the rare occasion a band does such a thing, it is typically nothing short of avant-garde; a musical revolution within the genre, redefining the way it is viewed by society. The implications of such a claim are that a band possesses an art form, brimming with experimentation and unique signature sound; their contribution to the world of music. To describe Dale Cooper's debut as anything less than this would be a disservice, not only to the band, but to the genre they have innovated, black-power-mince. The self-titled is a cathartic purgation of human emotion; a minute and 2 seconds of unshackled auditory euphoria, transcending all prior genre boundaries to create an amalgam of noise capable of instilling 100 years of fervent emotions within the listener.
In its brief existence, black-power-mince has established itself as a genre primarily concerned about communicating with the elements; fire, water, earth and air, both in a literal 'stones and embers' sense, and in that it really digs into the bones of the human experience. The forces of nature – and this include things like Chaos and Time – are essentially all that exist because they are endless. It is in that intrinsic infinity that Dale Cooper drew their influences; this album is triumphant, declaring war against phony high-mindedness, decrying the artificial and placing the natural on a pedestal. While the ambitious goal of natural singularity was often met with incredulity and cynicism, what has been done with this single can be seen only as a direct communication with nature; an inextricable connection between the spiritual, physical, and musical mediums, uniting them together with the same significance that Einstein’s ultimate theory sought to do with the laws of physics.
Dale Cooper have explicated the standards of not only their own genre, black-power-mince, but of music itself. To evoke such emotion in any human is a feat in and of itself, but to do it with such transience and brevity is a philosophical triumph. They have proven themselves as the archetypes of musical discovery. Communicating to the human soul with the elements we are so often exposed to, they have questioned the boundaries of genres, the limits of music, and dare I say it, brushed against questions pertaining to the meaning of human existence. What has been created here is nothing short of a masterpiece; few albums, let alone a single, have such a fulfilling effect after listening to. It is a release that those who embrace it, will find comfort and guidance in its wisdom.
