Bill Orcutt - How The Thing Sings

(Editions Mego, 2011)

Bill Orcutt, emasculating once again whole segments of pussy-footing noise musicians with simply an acoustic guitar.  Not that I would call this noise, what Orcutt is doing.  Though I can imagine the noise tag being thrown at him, as much in celebration as antagonism.  Orcutt's playing is hyper-masticated to the point of pulping, acoustic shredding (the term that feels invented for Orcutt's style of playing) that purées notes together in a way that defies easy categorization.  So Orcutt, while stylistically a descendent of Derek Bailey, is operating in a highly individual territory that is, in its genius, beyond any broad genre signifiers.  How The Thing Sings builds upon Orcutt's debut, achieving a greater range between textured, meditative, albeit skewampus blues and mind-twistingly schizophrenic chaos.  It seems that with Orcutt exploring every crevice of his guitar (chirping along with it nonsensically as he does) he has discovered a deep well with infinite returns.

Bill Orcutt - How the Thing Sings - "Lost They Book" (editions mego)

71.

Kevin Drumm
Sheer Hellish Miasma
(Editions Mego, 2002)

Miasma is Greek for pollution (according to what I could find on Wikipedia) and the title, Sheer Hellish Miasma, is pretty much a full description of what Kevin Drumm has created here. Four lengthy meditations (five on the reissue) on electronic noise as a cleansing agent. I really don't know how to approach this album in English. It's just that good I guess.

-Thistle

2008 Round Up Pt. 2

More shotgun blasts of worthy releases from last year that we never got around to when they were initially released, but are all most definitely worth your time.

Birchville Cat Motel
Four Freckled Constellation
(02.2008, Conspiracy Records)

Now that Birchville Cat Motel has moved beyond his beloved moniker to analog only recordings as Our Love Will Destroy The World, Four Freckled Constellation stands as one of the few releases by the New Zealander pressed on wax. Separated into six wonderfully varied slabs of textured, noisy drone that range from beautiful to monstrous to creepy, Four Freckled Constellation definitely honors its format and stands out as one of his best works as BCM. I liked this release quite a bit more than his other 2008 full length, Gunpowder Temple of Heaven. In fact, listening to it again I am wondering how I left it off my 2008 top 50…

Angel
Kalmukia
(02.2008, Editions Mego)

The third full length from Angel, Kalmukia is filled with meandering, ethereal blues wrapped in splayed electrical chords that are set ablaze atop a writhing, low-end reverberating mass. It is that deep bellied, low-end mass permeating all corners of Kalmukia that provides the air of doom and apocalyptic (if not the antithesis) of an otherwise banal artistic pseudonym. However, the trio of Angel doesn’t stop at blues; laying a lonely cello atop barren stretches of static-pulsing desert, Kalmukia feels at periods like doom chamber ensemble. Just don’t forget the doom; there is a reason Angel gets compared with Earth and Sunn O))).

Dino Felipe
No Fun Demo
(06.2008, No Fun)

I haven’t listened to any of Dino Felipe’s previous work in the realms of electronic noise, but this supposed demo is pristine weirdo pop genius. Building on a lo-fi aesthetic that is removed from more of the faddish stuff that dominated most of 2008, Felipe fills like an odd mix of Kurt Weisman and Blank Dogs which equates to the use of drum machines, a little new/no wave action, generally bizarre vocals and killer pop instincts. Felipe is all over the map on the fourteen tracks collected here, but never far from a central core that makes this No Fun Demo both fun and, well, it still sounds like a demo, but in a good way. Makes you wonder what Felipe could do if he really set his mind to something that didn’t require the demo tag, because I would kill to make music this good. This is another curious omission from our lists in 2008.

-Mr. Thistle