Zygadlo, Rudi / Tragicomedies

Planet Mu

Singer-songwriter and electronic musician Rudi Zygadlo’s 2010 Great Western Laymen debut took the fundamentals of dubstep to a point previously unheard, amalgamating off-kilter influences like choral music and Frank Zappa into the mix, breaking the ground that many artists have since explored. At the time, The Fader called the album “smart, weird pop songs built with big ideas and the kind of magpie ingenuity that is sometimes mistaken for mental illness.” Now, following on the heels of his recently released single Melpomene, Zygadlo presents Tragicomedies, a sophomore album that once again defies easy categorization and pigeonholing.  Wilfully perverse, Tragicomedies plots a different trajectory, dumping the dubstep chassis while leaving its faint traces and treatments, jump cuts and edits. It’s a puzzling, romantic and emotionally open album; cerebral, yet poppy and direct, weaving from woody, folky arrangements to doo-wop and the elegant structures and motifs of classical music in an unforced and playful way.  Tragicomedies opens with a lyrical reminder of past love—the woozy, pitchy piano ballad “Kopernikuss,” which is followed by “Melpomene,” where the piano vamps reach a crescendo while Zygadlo sings of his lost love. By the album’s end, it’s clear he has been operating in a unique musical zone, with classical minimalist repetition replacing the dubstep-inspired structure of his past. Listen more closely and one detects echoes of a broad range of music including Laurie Anderson, Raymond Scott, Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares, Alfred Schnittke, John Zorn, Bach, Prince and much more. But what’s most striking is how Zygadlo’s twisted take on pop has a distinctly 2012 feel to it, bursting at the seams with a sense of now. This is music pouring out in the most natural way possible, full of emotion, life and living.

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