Solar Fire Trio - Hand to Mouth (Sky-Fi Industries CS)

Hey all. Graduating tomorrow so things are a bit frantic on this end, but I figured I'd throw up the reviews that were published over at Foxy Digitalis this week before things settle back down. The following five are all from there.

Formed in 2005, the Solar Fire Trio—consisting of tenor saxophonist Ray Dickaty, altoist Dave Jackson and drummer Steve Belger—have a modus operandi based on meshing free jazz with the “rebellious spirit of rock music.” What results really seems more in line with the “rebellious spirit” inherent in free jazz alone. Which isn’t to say that this tape doesn’t rock or roll; on the contrary, it does both exceptionally.

Opening with the Aylerian call to arms of “Babble,” the trio immediately proves themselves nimble and coherent improvisers. Dickaty’s tenor growls and honks forward while Jackson’s alto punctuates a driving counterpoint. Yet the key here is in the lone man out, Belger, and his immensely creative drum work. Never one to merely accompany, the percussionist is always at the head of the piece, helping to forge it from the ground up with energetic form. The title track’s opening, a solo by Berger, is patient and spatial before Jackson’s alto steps in with a snake charming melody, his airy tone floating about in wavering breathiness.

Yet the point here is not in the strength of their melodic work, which is perfectly capable and quite beautiful in parts, but in their abilities as a collective. There’s a continuous undercurrent of groove that keeps all members meshed toward a common end. With so few players present and only two types of instruments the sound is inevitably a spacious one, but the zephyr-like mobility on display is just as easily corralled into fits of tone, as on “Stony Ground.” With each line so apparent at all times though, it is just as easy to follow along with interest as it is to get caught in the maelstrom. And that is an achievement in its own right. If anything, the closing track title, “Savage Grace,” is a perfect descriptor.

Dylan Ettinger - Bread of the Dead (El Tule CS)

From Foxy Digitalis:

Released on Ettinger’s own El Tule label, this release showcases six tracks that trek the boundaries between pop, drone, and overt experimentalism in much the same manner as contemporaries such as Ducktails, albeit with a unique sound all his own.

Ettinger’s sound, consistently manifested through a whimsical and ultra lo-fi production value, is thick and full however, making for a very strange pop sensibility that manages to nestle itself in the noggin as it performs its rituals. The loping organ line of the opening “Pan de Muertro” has an almost R. Crumb “keep on truckin” sensibility to it that is accompanied by muddied vocals and kazoo for a strange tropical beer-on-the-beach party vibe—Corona only, please. The following “Rosa Parks” slips into less shallow waters in a stark drone piece whose crude sound leaves everything shimmering wonderfully. In fact, the rest of the first side is drenched in a reverb wash that leaves it crystallized straight through “Cross My Eyes.”

The second side’s “Fat Babies” presents yet another take on Ettinger’s sound, this time focusing on guitar trawl lines and moody, almost Rambutan-style drift. Moaning vocals keep the whole at a steady simmer that continues the heavily baked feel of the tape. Same goes for “Pushin’,” whose gamelan, Skaters-style animal calls and finger piano clatter point one giant finger further down the road to oblivion. The closing “Rainfall” is cloudy enough for its bass-heavy beat to take on a jungle feel that seems to be the trademark here. A really nice one for fans of that special breed of gone, dubbed to doob murk.

Black Guys - Black History (Sicksicksick / Hype Machine CD)

In from Foxy Digitalis:

A collection of New Mexican noise duo Black Guys’ 3” and cassette output thus far, this pro-pressed anthology is as swell a place to start as any in acquiring these guys’ tough to track down output.

Beginning with their 2006 release “Outkast Blakface,” the disc is chock full of the duo’s clattering and grinding take on noise. Much of the first release’s sound is actually quite stark and just downright weird, with odd samples and contact mic whirls meshing into a weird for weird’s sake kinetic babble. “The Reparations Will Not be Televised” garbles along with a descending high note that seeps up from beneath the carriage wheels to wreak havoc on your mental state while “Black by Popular Demand” presents two tracks—“You Mean the World to Me” and “White Chicks are Free”—that really seek out the outer reaches of inner discourse. Very insular stuff, but warm in its own way. Like putting a frog in water and letting it simmer. Same goes for the humorously titled “Fear of a Black President,” whose mushy rumble blows steam wherever it goes.

The closing “(Interracial) Noise Conspiracy” is a bonus track only found here, and its deranged rhythms and female grunts are a real chilly end to this comp. It’s a hell of a sound and these guys clearly have a serious grasp on their approach. Fried, fried, fried.

Aidan Baker & Thisquietarmy - A Picture of a Picture (Killer Pimp CD)

From Foxy Digitalis:

Aiden Baker and Thisquietarmy’s Eric Quach reconvene on this follow up to their first EP together, “Orange.” Rather than relay tracks back and forth through the mail however, this time the duo made a point of working the material out live, with little to no overdubbing involved. What results is a symbiotic approach to drone that is concerned as much with forward momentum as it is with textural elements.

Lasting an hour, the disc’s four tracks each represent a logical exploration of one element of the unit’s sound. The opening “Imagistic Continuity” glistens as the duo’s guitars intersect in slow motion iridescence. Combining equal parts Fripp & Eno with an undercurrent of noisier influence, the piece transforms itself continuously as it radiates outward from its opening. The following “Loss of Perspective” immediately inverts itself however, slipping inward as it delves deep into some cavernous patterns of thick, folk strums and cresting tonal waves. There is a proggy, constructive element here that separates the material from your usual drone act, as it manifests itself more closely to a live composition than an overtly drone-oriented work. The result is some of the moodiest drone one is likely to come across, as harmonic progressions drive a dirge-like theme above the crystalline shards intermingling below. The work even begins to take on an almost club-like vibe, with a certain brooding trance feel not so far off from the same forest-of-the-mind traversed by Gas.

“Negative Space” once more looks outward, as trickling notes delay and decay around one another, building into a tall cloud of sound whose intricacies are endless and immersive. Each movement, no matter how decisive, is swept into the cyclical center, only to be seen again when another revolution has completed itself. The addition of an amorphous bass line adds to the club feel, pulsing and bobbing in the light of night. Not that this is dance music whatsoever, though maybe the emerald green world of more mysterious creatures believe otherwise. The closing “Horizon Line,” the longest work here at 20-minutes, only deepens the nighttime atmospherics of the rest of the disc, albeit in a far more haunting, even sinister, vein. Deepening the blackness, the piece moves through vast swarms of sinuous mental lines whose construction treads on the right side of a fine line between ambient/drone atmospherics and clichéd movie mood setting. Yet the duo exudes such clarity of vision that it is hard to not be swept up in the grandiose nature of the pieces. One for summer nights and firefly fights.

Seaworthy - 1897 (12k CD)

From Foxy Digitalis:

Cameron Webb’s Seaworthy project returns with a set whose spatial setting greatly impacts the sonic output presented here. Given the chance to record an album in an abandoned Australian ammunitions bunker, Webb took full advantage of the empty spaces afforded to him, combining the natural reverb of the space with found sounds from the neighboring wetlands to create a stark and physically grounded aural experience.

Trotting the line between ambient organizer and field recorder, Webb presents twelve tracks, each numbered and labeled as either “Inside,” “Ammunition,” “Installation” or, on the closing track alone, “Outside.” This poetic move from inside to outside is hardly noticeable however, so encapsulating are the sounds themselves. Gentle guitar is woven on “Ammunition 2” and “3,” taking full advantage of the space and surrounding sounds in creating a lulling meditation on the area.

The “Installations,” especially the still glistening of “1” and the flustered electro-acoustics of “2” present another angle, sometimes mixing guitar in but mostly sticking to the scrapes and hums within the space. For my money though, some of the strongest material here is found in the brief and eerie recordings made within the building with little to know instrumentation. Vast caverns of air move about as footsteps and small trickles emanate through the space, making for a highly tangible listening experience. For my money, there actually could have been more of this, and often it seems the ideas here are more divided and contrasting than perhaps was intended—nestling guitar tracks next to still static hum is a tough thing to pull off without making the guitar initially read as slightly trite. Still, this is a well-conceived and thoughtful direction, and one clearly engaged here by a highly capable practitioner of the form. Very interesting.

Christopher Riggs - I Feel So Strong. I Feel I Could Punch a Hole in a Fucking Wall. (Bug Incision Records CD-R)

Just in from Brainwashed:

Considering the title, it appears guitarist Christopher Riggs has created a pretty big hole. Among a slew of young experimental musicians whose output often sees highly limited pressings, Riggs, an Oberlin Conservatory graduate, has been making his mark in groups such as Trauma (with Ben Hall and Hans Buetow) and a trio with Hall and Joe Morris. His solo output on numerous labels, including his own Holy Cheever Church Records, has been outstanding as well however, often pushing the brink of his instrument's assumed capacity beyond recognition.

Likely at once Riggs' sparest and most difficult outing, this disc presents five untitled tracks of solo electric guitar improvisations marked by spacious, often nearly imperceptible treatments of the guitar through techniques far beyond usual strum and pick tactics. The opening, for example, is a seven-plus minute piece whose entire sonic output is stretched out among the time period with distinct and sudden blurts of scrape and grate that dissipate back into the white silence as quickly as they appear. Think John Cage meets Derek Bailey, or Alan Licht covering Morton Feldman.

From the beginning then, there is an emphasis on the spaces between the sounds as much as the sounds themselves, or, perhaps better put in this context, the holes are as numerous as the punches making them. Comparatively the second track, opening with a chalk on metal screeching, is downright loud, flitting about between what sounds like tinkling glasses and straws sucking caramel. Nary a recognizable guitar tone rears its head.

The same can be said throughout. The buzzing sound of a bug imitating a dentist drill lurches throughout the third track, as a grating tone pitch shifts back and forth beneath, eventually making its way to the head and lodging itself there, left to brew menacingly before breathy bowed drones wind and crack themselves into a heaping alien landscape. This is some extremely advanced and entirely organic improvisation that truly manages to carve out new approaches to sound-as-sound.

Perhaps most harrowing is the fourth track which, following the previous two, consists of 15 minutes of muffled stutters buried beneath vast crevices of emptiness. Christopher is willing to go as long as he needs to in order to make every sound count, and the result is as spare as they come. Sounds come and go throughout, but they are far from the norm. The closing fifth track sounds like a tea kettle whistle in a cavern, with static white noise writhing below the chirping bowed high end before bending like a rubber band into a frenetic release of tension whose quick cut-off leaves the album's end as mysterious as its beginning.

Christopher Riggs is a guy who deserves some attention. Anyone who has heard his playing with Hall and Morris knows that the guy has chops, but it is this stuff that really pushes the boundaries. Seemingly coming from a stance aligned more with the classically-based sound experimentalists of the twentieth century than the noise practitioners he often plays with, Riggs nevertheless walks the borders with aplomb, at once translating both sides into one another until any cultural delineation disappears and the sounds are left to do as they will. Beautiful, original and fully realized, this is work well worth grabbing before its 50 copies are gone forever.

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.

Bird Names - Sings the Browns (Really Coastal CS)

Here's one I've been trying to get to for a while put out by Really Coastal, a label whose four releases so far are all super swell. I don't know much about this group, but they put out a nice collection of tunes here, that run the gamut from weird post-ESP folky weirdness to near ethno-derangement, all fed through a band setting and fairly strict song structure. These are some wild tunes however...

The first side opens with "Nature's Over," whose playful, naive Fugs style is a fine initiation into the super distinct sound of this unit. The following "Living Longer" moves through weird pitter-patter rhythms, funky bass and vocal melody lines that are at once frenzied and lazy. There's really a strange and distinct amalgamation of styles going on here, really clattery but still strangely tight. Almost sounds like some long lost weirdo European psych private press or something, only if those dudes had headed out West and pitched camp in some cabin out in Humboldt County. "Defined Stijls" is an oddly Os Mutantes-y lurch, but not driving enough for Brazil's rhythmic tendencies, instead replacing any party sense with slanted country slidings. "Scandanavia" is a little more hurried, almost like a playful and less punked out Butthole Surfers, though still raw. Just lighter.

Really one of the toughest sounds I think I've had to get through, especially since it seems to have arrived fully formed with this tape, though apparently the unit is seasoned and already has four previous albums under its belt. Go figure. Also of interest is that the group apparently more or less holed themselves up in Chicago to do this tape, which means that this was a pretty insular and, likely, mentally effecting go at a studio session. Certainly sounds it. Some of it is Shaggs-like, but it's all quite constructed, jumping from style with no warning whatsoever. A really interesting tape, and a sound that's got to be heard. Doesn't sound "freak-folky" so much as it sounds like some freaks making folk. And they're doing it extremely well. Maybe this review came too late, but find this one if you can. And if you can't, it's getting the vinyl reissue treatment, so be sure to catch the next wave. The best chamber kitchen-folk psychedelic unit I've heard in some time, to say the least. Instant weirdo classic, every song's a winner.

Various Artists - Psyched Punch (DNT Records 2XCS)

Here's a double cassette offering I've been trying to wrap my mind around in the last couple weeks. In celebration of DNT's 3 year anniversary and the 50th release on the label, Tynan put together this double cassette compilation featuring past favorites from the label alongside one final side of new material from four DNT-style projects. Four sides and about 15 projects is a lotto ingest at once, but the compilation does a fine job of reminding us what a strong aesthetic stamp DNT has, making for a pretty nicely flowing offering here.

With something like this it seems impossible to cover it all, but highlights come from the opening track, an early Robedoor track called "Tribe Rites" off, I believe, the first DNT compilation. Real plodding and much buzzier and weirder than their more doom oriented stuff of late. Forbici's manic electronic psychosis on "Remote Concentrator" is out of control while Yellow Swans' "Untitled" crackles and leaks static all over the surge lines. Jazzfinger and Plankton Wat make swell appearances, as does Mudboy's "Untitled" and Super Minerals classic "The Piss." The gentle and extended "Pink Hotel" by Quilts is also a real highlight, spreading out for 15 long minutes of organ drone and simmer that lasts long enough to clear the pallet for the incoming new material on the fourth side.

As for the new material, time is given to Blank Realm, Plankton Wat, Super Minerals and Birdcatcher. It's a nice way to present the material, looking back on the label's past without feeling like a straight retrospective. Pointing firmly toward the future, these four bands all present some swell material, with Blank Realm's "Cat's on the Edge" grooving like the Doors on floors in a kind of lazy goth psych groove. Nice stuff that reaches a nice rolling boil of numb nod and trod. Think a lyrically spare, post-Can take on Question Mark & the Mysterions. Plankton Wats' "Ghosts" is a spare guitar and voice drifter whose open incantations present a kind of ritualized summer haze, tinkling bells and all. Super Minerals "Purple Gravity Spindles" finds the unit meshing their minimalist Clusters sound with the dirty and hollow groove of earlier releases, though the sound here treads slightly heavier on the side of The Piss, only with a warmth and cavernous glow to it. Like some slowly deteriorating jungle cave, humid and sticky. Quite a beautiful one here, a real full and defined sound. The closing "Dusk" by Birdcatcher is a fine end to the excursion, not only closing out the tape as a milestone of arrival, but also pointing its deranged finger forward toward a future of more psychosis-stemmed sounds from this consistently killer label. Really nice package that got snagged up pretty quick from the label, but poke around. Well worth finding, and a great way to hear some stuff you probably won't get to hear again.

Kill and Eat - Green Bushes (Alright Now CD)

Here's a disc I got a ways back from Caleb Vogel, whose Kill and Eat project has released this stunning little disc on Alright Now Records, a label that doesn't believe in cover art as a means of music discourse, which I suppose is supposed to point towards it being all about the music and not the marketing tactics behind it.

Possible discussion of that aside, the disc is beautiful, opening with the title track, which features a rolling piano line and a softly sung line gently repeated until the piano dissipates into air, brought back again with a jazzy, ethereal quality which nevertheless is highly informed and downright classicist in sound. An accompanying drum line enters as the piece sways between bluesy, Mal Waldron style piano before an airy, breath through metal Nate Wooley style trumpet sound comes in. It's highly expressionist, and the whole thing moves with a casual and lilting groove spurred mostly by the piano backdrop. The end of the 18-plus minute romp finds a crescendo building softly toward an eventual diminishing plane of tones mingling and reshaping against the drum backdrop.

The following "Green Bushes (sketch)" is far more upbeat, and even poppy, moving with a momentum that Vince Guaraldi would approve of while the singer repeats a rhythmic and sincere wordless vocal. Really wonderful piano playing here that glides nimbly beneath the drummer's carefully placed beat work. The closing "Ellipsis (sketch)" is a more billowing affair, with the whole trio cutting out parcels of space for themselves as they glide towards a resolution of casual bluesy smiles, complete with a drum solo that grooves on into the end. Nice little disc, and well worth checking out. We can definitely hope for more from a unit so talented yet genuine in their pursuits.