Mike Weis - Loop Current / Raft

(Barge Recordings, 2011)

The first hint that you should be listening to this LP right now: Barge Recordings put it out.  The second: it's the solo debut of Mike Weis, percussionist from Zelienople.  The third: It's really really really good (see sample below).  I've been neck-deep in Loop Current / Raft over the past week or two trying to figure out how to convey the deep-rooted, dense, intensely satisfying, gravely revolutions the record contains.  I think there is something to be said of a percussionist who creates something you could conceivably swim in.  Loop Current / Raft (names, respectively, for the two sides of the record) has an indelible sense of texture that is not common of long form, drone-y style albums.  Additionally, Weis has the added sense of a composer, each composition rising and falling with subtle precision, swelling and receding with a careful attention to the building layers of sediment weighting music.  There is a great variety of tones here, all of which contribute to the vague sense of doom that's permeating most all of Weis's work.  It's an enchanting, darkly magical record that promises to please.