What happens when music nerds (hey, I am one of them) get together and bond over their music nerd-dom? Well, besides a great deal of talk, interesting musical ideas are born from just these types of occasions. Chord is an outcome of such a discussion of fellow musicians over their craft. Chord, besides being comprised of members of Pelican, Unfortunaut, Anatole, and X-Bax, has just one collective mission: explore and manipulate just what can be done with a single chord. Flora is the first recorded work from this four piece outfit and is an intriguing concept with how the band attacks its craft.
Each of the four pieces that Chord tackle on their debut Flora are droning walls of harmonious bliss that can entrance listeners with their simultaneous heavy atmosphere. The first piece, "Am7," is soothing and meets all of the basic requirements for inclusion in the ambient club (music or sound that works both as background and as something that one can pay attention to if they wish). It is an excellent example of what Chord has to offer on Flora. "Gmaj (flat13)" is a surprisingly quiet affair with undulating tones and what sounds like the scraping of guitar strings while periodic volume swells (of varying tones) pop in and out of aural existence; eventually the volume and mood shift into a wall of noise with an ominous guitar line that might fit in any horror movie soundtrack. The mellow tones of "E9" are a pleasant counterpoint to the noisy atmosphere of its successor, "Am," and both continue to show the musical prowess of the members of Chord.
As a concept, the fact that Chord builds all of their tracks around a single chord, comes through with quite good results and a great deal of variety amongst the four songs. Flora certainly is a surprising debut, and I do hope that it is the first of several records by this project and one that should turn quite a few heads. Actually, given the number of musical chords, this outfit has quite a few compositions to go before they should call it quits.
