topographies - "Ideal Form"
Words by Zach Romano.
You can spend your whole life avoiding making a Goth album, but sometimes it comes out of you despite your best efforts. After working in other genres or staying away from music altogether for years, San Francisco-based guitarist and songwriter Gray Tolhurst, whose dad was the original drummer for Goth demigods The Cure, has embraced his birthright gloom as the frontman of topographies. Their debut album Ideal Form, out today on Funeral Party Records, balances the melancholy with moments of sunlight and the minor-key drone with danceable hooks.
Topographies formed in 2018 when Tolhurst and keyboardist Jeremie Ruest, while playing together in a folk band, discovered shared tastes that were decidedly un-folky. The two found bass player Justin Oronos on Craigslist and added, but then quickly lost, a drummer. The drummer’s departure proved to be an inflection point for the band, as they found their sound and vibe through to filling the space left with programmed beats. “We either had to find a new drummer or start a new way, and we chose the latter,” says Tolhurst. “People think that bands kind of arrive fully formed, but actually there are a lot of indecisive moments.”
Topographies’ sound floats somewhere between a darker Wild Nothing and a less-frenetic Cold Cave, and it arrives fully coherent on Ideal Form. The band quickly establishes their palette on album opener “Mirror,” with distorted guitar and bass interplay over drum triggers that are more metronomic than pummeling. Unlike many other bands working in this space, topographies seem more concerned with interlocking elements than building layer upon layer, and this judiciousness works in the band’s favor on tracks like “This Evening Also” and “Lonely Figure.”
Tolhurst’s baritone is drenched in reverb, and though this comparison might be a bit facile under the circumstances, his vocals often recall Robert Smith, especially in the vowel shifts. The lyrics are often too buried to understand, but when they can be made out, they deal with topics like dissolving relationships and wishing away feelings, always unsuccessfully. Ideal Form is not all doom and gloom, though: first single “Rose of Sharon” reads as a love song, and “See You As You Fall” has brightness that belies its title.
Stay tuned, as Topographies are next week’s guests on the Look At My Records! podcast. Tune in to hear Tolhurst and Ruest talk with Tom and Zach about the experience of recording and collaborating while quarantined away from other band members, Tolhurst's up and down relationship with the music of his dad’s band, what youthful rebellion means when your parents are, like, unimaginably cool, and more!
You can purchase Ideal Form via Bandcamp. The album is also available on all streaming platforms, including Spotify. Keep up with the band by liking them on Facebook and following them on Instagram.
