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Collaboration with Lawrence English
You might think of this as an updating, some fifteen or more years hence, of Gum, the adventurous duo of Samartzis and Andrew Curtis whose “Vinyl Anthology” was issued on 23five early last year and who, no matter how outside they took it, always retained a glimmer of rock at the core. Here his turntablist companion is Lawrence English, presenting four dense tracks over the course of 20 or so minutes, the cuts tethered together by the omnipresent crackle of vinyl. The first, “Faster Than Cold” is a tour de force, a propulsive layering of skids, gurgles and pops with a strong, thrumming undercurrent. That “bass line”, just as in a good funk tune, will drop out for a couple of seconds, suspending tension, then reappear with even greater force and urgency. Ending with a repeated, eerily gasping voice, the cut kind of steals the show here. The remaining three pieces are all enjoyable if less spectacular. “Gut Bucket Blues”, motors along with the sort of turbine-like rhythms that remind one of Gunter Muller, albeit with a thick blanket of prickly noise and an insistent, bawling alarm. There’s a sexy, slow, steam-blast pulse pacing “Goin’ Back Home”, some warped vinyl guitar actually connoting something about the blues, even as it’s smothered under an avalanche of extraneous, wonderful noise. “Phosphorescent Clouds” starts rather humorously with something of a samba beat, quickly deluged by a mass of sound that hints at the jungle and rain until it cuts out and you find yourself faced with a ragtime jazz band fading in and out of focus, soon enough brutally sliced off itself. A fine, fine little disc, this one.
Brian Olwnick - Bagatellen
