To confuse parts for the whole is inevitable with Palm. On their latest effort- Nicks and Grazes Palm embrace discordance to dazzling effect. “We wanted to reconcile two potentially opposing aesthetics” Kasra Kurt of the band says. “To capture the spontaneous free energy of our live shows while integrating elements from the traditionally gridded palette of electronic music.” In order to avoid what Kurt refers to as “Palm goes electro” the musicians spent years educating themselves on the ins and outs of production by learning Ableton while also experimenting with “the percussive textural and gestural potential” of their instruments. To this end the band continued the age-old tradition of instrument-preparation augmenting guitars with drumsticks metal rods and at the suggestion of Charles Bullen (This Heat Lifetones) coiling rubber-coated gardening wire around the strings. The unruliness of the prepared guitar on songs like “Mirror Mirror” and “Eager Copy” contrasts with the steadfast reproducibility of the album’s electronic elements. - - While Palm cite Japanese pop music dub and footwork as influences on this album’s sonic palette they found themselves returning time and again to the artists who inspired them to start the group over a decade ago. “When we were first starting out as a band we bonded over an appreciation of heavy aggressive noisy music” vocalist/guitarist Eve Alpert reflects. “We wrote parts that were just straight-up metal.” Kurt adds “I found myself rediscovering and re–falling in love with the visceral jagged quality of guitars in the music of Glenn Branca The Fall Beefheart and Sonic Youth all important early Palm influences.” Returning to the fundamentals gave Palm a strong foundation upon which they could experiment freely resulting in their most ambitious and revelatory album to date.