The intriguing history of Mauro Pawlowski, Rudy Trouvé, and Craig Ward lies not merely in their roles as present and past members of
dEUS, or even in their collaboration together as the Love Substitutes -- this effort, rather than being another joint project, showcases each of their individual talents, essentially consisting of three mini-albums released as one joint effort. While this sounds on the face of it to be more curiosity than essential listen, Pawlowski/Trouve/Ward actually proves to be an inspired little release, with the evident differences in the three performers' individual approaches allowing the listener to see how they all mesh together elsewhere. Ward's lengthy efforts, "All Is Mask" and "Sutta Ksam Si Lla," bookend the album, a mixture of ambient drone and swooping shrill feedback solos, occasional drums, and Ward's own crisp but still hard to catch vocals, all of which are backward masked one way or another. Trouvé's nine contributions are models of inspired home recording in a combination of lo-fi roughness and echo familiar to any number of '90s bedroom performers and more pristine performances that result in a lovely blend at many points, such as on "1000 Sleepness Nights," the deft portrait of an incident in a relationship on "Seashore," and the sweet keyboard and acoustic guitar blend on "The God of Small Disasters." Pawlowski's ten songs similarly take a rough-and-ready tone throughout but exchange calmer restraint for a more frazzled approach, readily evident on the ghost-of-darker-Flying Nun chug of "Come Share My Mood" and the murky, mostly instrumental crawl of "In the Presence of Something Small." (Calling another song "Death, a Physical Disaster" certainly doesn't lighten the mood more, though generally Pawlowski's section is more unsettlingly melancholy than doom-laden.) ~ Ned Raggett