I’m trying to determine what portion of the excitement I feel when listening to “A Hunter in Hiding” is due to this being a collaboration between two of my favorite Ball of Wax regulars (one of them a collaborator of my own in Laudatory Consortium) and what portion is that same blissed-on-stereo-sounds-kid-hearing-his-favorite-music-for-the-first-time that pops up every now and then when something particularly striking catches my ears.
Darryl Blood is known in some circles for composing reflective instrumentals that conjure a nexus dimension where flappers break their Louis heels in the pebbled streets of the Old West, while Green Light Cameras brings the sort of cerebral and just-out-there-enough pop music that makes pop stars wish they had the talent to write their own material. There is undoubtedly far more to both artists’ repertoires than this, but in the same way you might think of a scent or an offhand comment when somebody mentions the name of an old friend, these are the things that I think of when I hear or see these names.
The fun part about a collaboration like this is not knowing who did what. I can hear wisps and tells from both artists’ catalogues, and their styles are not necessarily similar—but “A Hunter in Hiding” is a damn fine combination of their strengths, from the introduction that serves to place the listener firmly in a haunted location with its unsettling half-filled waterjug percussion and plaintive moans and through the tonally bright piano refrain to the surprising and buoyant straight-rock drums and descending piano riff of the “chorus,” or rather the hunter bursting forth from his/her/their hiding place to race to another before being spotted.