Much like the absurdist trip that it evokes, I don’t understand Geodesic and I don’t actually think I’m supposed to. This doesn’t stop the project being blindingly fantastic. This EP is incredibly unique in a lot of ways, which all stem from the fact that it is not afraid of challenging our expectations. As Weak Moves repeatedly shows; they’re not hand-holding us through this experience with changes of cadence, long silences and unbearably tense crescendos, it trusts the listener to stick through the journey and emerge on the other end.
The first song, Longitudinal, is a great example of this, starting with meditative synth and nature sounds for the first minute and a half before quickly building into a rock crescendo, then falling away again on the other side just as fast. A song, even an interlude in modern music which has a minute and a half of nature sounds at the start is an incredibly bold move. Today attention spans are so short so doing this is a strong creative choice showing they’re not willing to compromise their vision for streams. It perfectly replicates the calm anticipation of waiting for a trip to start and the quick high we get through the musical crescendo is just a taste of what is to come.
No Align fully introduces us to the changing rhythm motif Weak Moves uses heavily on this EP in a way which sounds fantastic. The contrast of spacey guitar and vocals at the start to intense rock guitar then to distorted bass and digital noise creates this devolving atmosphere as if you’re descending into a dark world.
In general I think the project gets better as it progresses, especially considering the smooth transitions between tracks which I think get even stronger on some of the later songs. The transition between Dynamic and Remind comes to mind as my favourite. Remind picks up the ethereal note Dynamic left on and twists it into this thumping bass without you even realising.
The outro Zaldem is actually my favourite track. This is not to say that it is comfortable listening however. The bass and drums slowly speed up in a way which feels very uneasy before building to this huge discordant peak of screeching guitar and machine gun-esqe drums. And it sits with that uncomfortable climax for twenty two brutal seconds where I had genuinely no idea how the climax was going to resolve, then out of nowhere comes this rather old school sounding vocal trill breaking the tension so drastically it made me laugh out loud. The whole project left me feeling confused but also incredibly fulfilled having gone on this crazy journey. Geodesic is psychedelic, ingenious and addictive. I’ll definitely be chasing the Weak Moves dragon after this one!
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