Thursday, July 9, 2009

Mike Khoury / Chris Riggs - My Words Came Out Slow and Odd (Holy Cheever Church Records CS)


Last one from that new batch of Holy Cheevers, this time with the maestro in tandem with fellow acoustic destruction meister Mike Khoury. This is a duo that makes a ton of sense to me, much like the Matt Endahl or Chris Dadge tag teams, as they all come at the music from a similar stance, classically based perhaps, but far more concerned with the noises themselves than any defining mode of play.

Of course the same goes here, with the first side seeing Khoury laying down some long violin lines while Riggs' electric sort of blubbers about, mumbling down the street, increasingly, until it all just turns to spastic mouth gestures mimicking 40s motorcycle engines. Khoury responds with a nice high pitched fizz, giving a real space between the two of them while Riggs moves some furniture around from corner to corner. Pretty spare material that'll drop out on you right quick before swinging back in with some new contraption or movement spurring the action. Even some two chord repetition from Khoury--Fiddler on the Loose or something. Real dramatics here, but all ground down to dust so the remnants are all that's left. Spooky even, taking on a kind of itching melodicism equal parts Godard's Weekends and fucking Close Encounters of the Third Kind.Like being trapped in a dark box in the middle of some empty desert with only four holes to look out, one on each side, just so you can truly take in the nowhereness. Better take the finger nails to the wood and start wearing it down before the sun comes up...

Second side is more or less of a similar mind, if a bit trillier and more spaced out. Like side one as the soundtrack to deep space exploration, where purple planets reveal bat-like creatures whose propensity for flowers is only rivaled by their thirst for blood--but not Earth blood, it seems. It's all very thrown against a wall stuff, ground into the siding and revealed for its essence. Beautiful and light, but no less guttural than their other stuff. Just weaving lines of glycerin-flushed strings see-sawing over one another. Great Beetlejuice-ish tape stripes too. A swell time all around.

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