Album Review
Buke and Gase
Scholars
Brassland
On their first album in five years, Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez—a.k.a. Buke and Gase—mix sweetly enticing noise and unsettling sentiments with expert finesse. Tangy and tantalizing, Scholars is bright, jittery art-pop, stuffed with twisty melodies, elusive lyrics and playful electronic effects, but it’s never clever for its own sake. Underneath the irregular beats and fractured arrangements, lovely (albeit warped) tunes await, while no amount of distortion can hide the distress in Dyer’s languid vocals when she sings, “Too much grip cuts circulation/And I’m numb from your needing,” on “Grips,” or observes, “I find it hard to care the way you are,” in the title track, adding, “I met you by bad choice.” While Buke and Gase have moved on from the eccentric homemade instruments that defined the duo’s early work, their music is as vibrant and provocative as ever.
