After Sceptre Hole demonstrated that the future can inherit older sounds without becoming their servant, this EP makes a smaller and perhaps stranger argument: sometimes progress means giving an idea more room than it originally received.
“Fooling Around” had already appeared on Leaf, but here it is allowed to stretch past seven minutes. The song does not use the extra time to transform itself into an enormous climax or prove that it deserves the space. It simply keeps moving. Bass, drums, guitar and synthesizer settle into a groove that feels capable of continuing beyond the edge of the record. David West’s voice remains soft and slightly removed, as though he is participating in the song while also watching it travel away from him.
The title makes this looseness sound unserious, but fooling around can be an important creative method. It is what happens before an activity has been forced to justify itself. Musicians repeat a figure because it feels good. Somebody adds a sound without knowing whether it belongs. A song outgrows its first recorded form because the players have not yet been told to stop. What appears casual from outside may be the moment when a piece discovers what it really wants to be.
Rat Columns sound comfortable inside that uncertainty. Their music contains melody and forward motion, but it also leaves a faint question hanging over everything. The guitars can be bright without fully escaping gloom. The rhythms suggest travel, yet the destination remains vague. Even when the songs are catchy, they rarely seem interested in grabbing the listener by the collar and demanding approval. They continue at their own peculiar temperature and allow us to decide whether to remain with them.
“Waiting in the New World” carries that contradiction directly in its name. A new world sounds like somewhere we should arrive triumphantly, but waiting implies that the door has not opened yet. The music moves with greater speed and lightness, while the title keeps the future just beyond reach. This is another reason your belief that the future is getting better does not feel naïve to me. Better does not mean fully delivered. Sometimes we can hear it approaching while remaining stuck in the waiting room.
“Strays” feels perfectly named for a recording left outside the album that originally produced it. Not every song finds its proper home immediately. Some pieces remain behind after a project is finished, carrying enough life to survive but lacking the official address that would explain where they belong. An EP can become a shelter for those recordings. It gathers the extended version, the session survivor and the portable four-track songs into one temporary household.
That improvised geography matters. Two of these pieces were recorded in borrowed spaces after touring, in apartments and a summer house rather than one permanent studio. You can hear the idea of the band becoming portable. The equipment may be modest, but the music does not need to wait for ideal conditions. A borrowed four-track and a room belonging to somebody else are enough to preserve a moment before everyone moves onward.
Private Release is full of objects created under similar circumstances. Music escapes its first container, travels through another format and develops a second life somewhere its maker may never have imagined. A shortened album track returns in full. An unused session song receives a side of vinyl. Recordings made while passing through Europe become part of a release issued by a Berlin label. Years later, the EP becomes files and reaches another listener through a blog archive.
Nothing stays in the place where it began.
The closing title, “Should I Leave You Alone?”, almost sounds like the EP speaking to the listener. Rat Columns do not overwhelm the room. Their songs hover nearby, repeating small movements and waiting to discover whether intimacy is welcome. The question contains awkwardness, affection and the possibility of withdrawal. It is not a grand romantic demand. It is the sound of someone unsure whether remaining close is comforting or intrusive.
That uncertainty may be the emotional thread holding these four recordings together. Fooling around, waiting, becoming a stray and wondering whether to leave someone alone are all conditions without firm resolution. They describe time spent between decisions, identities and destinations. Rat Columns make that in-between state melodic enough to inhabit.
The EP also confirms something suggested by Sceptre Hole: David West does not need to disguise melancholy as seriousness. Sadness can ride inside a bright rhythm. Doubt can be accompanied by a guitar that seems pleased to be alive. The music does not force the listener to choose between pleasure and uncertainty because most actual days contain both.
Perhaps that is another reason the future can improve. We become better at allowing several feelings to exist together without treating one as evidence that the others are false. A joyful sound does not erase pain. A borrowed room does not make a recording less real. A song excluded from one album is not necessarily a failure. An idea revisited later may reveal that its first ending was only an interruption.
Fooling around is sometimes how the future rehearses.
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