Sean McCann / Black Eagle Child - New Molluska (Roll Over Rover CS)

Alright, another one from that latest Roll Over Rover batch, and this time another split, a format the label seems to have a real fondness for, which is nice when you can get a full side to each contributor. It's enough space for both units to contribute enough to fully represent themselves, suit and tie style, but it also creates a relationship between dudes who otherwise don't necessarily get to inhabit the same magnetic strip. Yeah yeah, I go on about this a lot, but a good match-up is never to be over estimated.

This one is actually a reunion of sorts, and it's a fitting melding of minds, as McCann's "I Frown on Sorrow, Cool and Safe" perfectly interacts with Mike Jantz's untitled side. McCann's synth opener is, as has been the case for a while with this dude, next level. Synth burbblings and string glides that get into some of the more fried realms yet explored by McCann, with a real dense and compositional approach as always. Sean recently told me he's trying to move into denser material, and I'm not sure if this is what he meant but it sure could be. Moves from space to space at a moments notice without ever slipping apart or sounding ill-conceived. Just laser decays atop bowed orchestrations that pull the eastern and western hemispheres together in time, space, and mental conscious with one fell swoop. Delta, gagaku, kraut, you name it. Layered endlessly and beautious no doubt. And, as usual with Sean, a real sense of emotive melodicism that he somehow pulls off without ever sounding contrived. Moves you with nary a nudge required, and the end reads like the soundtrack to some time-lapse footage of a cartoon garden in bloom. Wild.

McCann's is a tough one to top, but to his credit Jantz's side is no disappointment whatsoever. The peanut butter to Sean's jelly if you will. And I deem it P.B. not so much because it's any stickier, but it is a bit firmer, less squishy. Whoa, watching way too much Food Network lately... but it's about right, I suppose... slowed down and intranslatable vocal ramblings with light drones backing them before Jantz's delicate finger-picked guitar work enters to take the thing off into Fahey wanderlust zones of real beauty, bird chirps and all. Nice one to accompany your PB&J picnic, while we're on the topic... A lot of dudes can pull off the finger-picking into oblivion thing, but few do it with as much direction and odd, off-the-cuff detailings as Jantz. Take the occasional entrance of fuzz on the guitar, which comes, leaves, comes back... sounds like a mistake the first time but the repetitions just make it feel weird. Which is nice. Definitely a certain Edenic quality here, and not just due to the Messianic admiration for bird calls. Eventually the thing really starts to meander, and the difference between the stream you're laying by and the stream of consciousness you're inhabiting starts to get a bit confused. Super rounded at the edges, and it just keeps getting hazier until it turns into a super blistering zone. Another nice one from all parties involved. No surprises there.