Schnüffler - Buero Bereich (Holy Cheever Church Records CS)

Another new one from Holy Cheever, this time from the duo of trumpeter Liz Allbee and percussionist Gino Robair. Comparably tame? Of course not. Riggs seems to always find the people who are really pushing their instruments' capacities, and that certainly continues to be the case here.

In fact, there's a nary a snare hit or clean trumpet tone to be found in the bunch. Instead, the two engage in some slow-mo noise drudge as combs are scraped over metal and electronic oscillations pitch shift above steaming tea kettles. Almost industrial in its approach, this could almost be some way airy Heath Moreland release, with clacking chord rattles and amp glitches galore. Yet there's a stoned kind of momentum here, a sort of churning and burning psychedelicism derived from the complete human mental takeover by machines.

Steeped in hiss and fuzz, it's a spacey one to be sure, but there is an overt sense of interaction here, despite the mechanized takeover. Everything is very controlled here, and things never get too unwieldy or out of hand. Each sound source is clear, the trumpet echoing statically above the rumbling shaking of the percussion in a sort of alien transmission free jazz tune whose waves were meshed with some high energy radiation en route to the ol' ear lobes. Super together, and off in all the right ways.

Chris' releases of late have been blowing my mind. Next in the batch is Riggs' own work on both Holy Cheever and on an as-yet unreviewed label (at least in these vaults), Unverified Records. So psyched on both of these and the future of the world Chris seems to be in close contact with. It's some heavy duty stuff, and all super limited too, so head over there and get them before everyone catches on and they're gone forever, the lost early work of the new free masters. Russolo, Varese, Feldman, Riggs? If only.