***“HOTOTOGISU—the duo of UK experimentalist MATTHEW BOWER (SKULLFLOWER, SUNROOF et al.) and New York-based-guitarist MARCIA BASSETT (DOUBLE LEOPARDS, ZAIMPH, GHQ)—are all about impact, about taking the physical aspect of sound and hallucinating it to the point of abstraction, so much so that for all of the complexity of their music it often sounds like it’s standing still, simply hanging in the air and vibrating without anything approaching a ‘plot’ to bring it to a point. By contrast, BURNING STAR CORE, the trio of drummer TREVOR TREMAINE, ROBERT BEATTU on electronics (both of whom also play in HAIR POLICE) and C. SPENCER YEH on violin and electronics, are more overtly propulsive, usurping ‘classic’ rock form via electronics and drums but still focused on momentum, on the jam as a form of structural gravity, on the unfolding of action via development over time. This all-improvised studio meeting is the perfect reconciliation of both tendencies, of Hototogisu’s obsessive layering of strata after strata of violently conceived noise and of Burning Star Core’s epic, post-Kraut thunder-punk style.”—David Keenan, Glasgow, November 2008. (NO EXPORT TO THE UK)
LP $13.75
11/17/2008
***“I first heard ROBERT MARTIN’s Long Goodbye while surrounded by friends. Even over the din of voices rallying to quantify, qualify, contain, bag and tag what we were all hearing, I was sure I'd never heard anything quite like it. Long Goodbye opens with some broken acoustic noodling that sounds like a Derek Bailey slow motion replay, over which a double-tracked cry of voices transmits mournfully, meticulously, and with an unnerving sense of purpose. From there it gets stranger and more beautiful, as Martin sings with unique abandon—is there such a thing as sad joy?—often wordlessly, frequently incoherently. The tunefulness of Martin's achingly beautiful voice sits in sharp contrast to the crudely played guitar, and sets Martin apart from his lamentably more 'in the know' contemporaries. There are few touchstones for the magic contained herein—Bobb Trimble at his most wounded, Tony Caro and John's All On The First Day LP, the earliest blues recordings of Guitar Roberts—but Martin's intensely private music is all his own. And now, ours to share.”—James Jackson Toth San Francisco, July 2007. NO UK EXPORTS.
LP $13.25
01/14/2008