I just realized I bought Dead at 24's Blast off Motherfucker! based on a still single review from these guys a million years ago and here they are putting out singles a few years later. Ride the Snake Records is one of those collectives of friends based out of Boston and Portland who decided to take matters in their own hands and get the music they loved out into the world, including this split single from The Native Cats and UV Race. I loved the live split full length on Almost Ready with UV Race and Eddy Current Suppression Ring so I was real curious to hear their contribution to this thing....and if I know splits, Native Cats are bound to share something in common with those guys or Ride the Snake is defying every convention of the format.
Native Cats does A-Side's "Ten Years Transportation" and the instrumentation (and insert) leads me to believe this is a two piece of bass and programmed percussion with vocals from Peter Escott. The sound comes off as a minimal, punky Gang of Four or Prinzhorn Dance School... a real dance-brut style that is unbelievably tight and sparse to the point of almost being oppressively rigid. A single tom beat is pounded over and over at the same density and speed in the simple foundation for the bass to come in with minimal melody... this is all that exists in the first verse of this one. Scott delivers his vocal in near monotone, hardly a melody to speak of, in a measured jagged style in direct opposition to that tom 4/4 beat. It's the claustrophobic sound of something coming down the hallway - getting closer and closer. Weird hissing snare-ish sounds build up, a synth comes in and the bassline changes slightly, but the message is clear. This has blinders on and is going staright towards the prize. There's only one way this can make you feel and we are going to make you feel it whether you like it or not.
The B-Side is from The UV Race, who managed to jam 4 tracks of loose punk on this side starting with, "Endless Summer" a free jazz, everyone-in sound and the band all adding their laid back two cents. A messy slow jazz track fading right into this session, already in progress... could be an old pavement track, a long forgotten studio session B-side of unselfconscious rattling, or Los Llamarda that slams right into "Shat it's self" a fast punky number with organ blasting, taking a single melody and blasting it out, devolving quickly into drum messes and electric scramble as if they wanted to show this looser side just to mess with you as they drive right off the cliff into a fast one structured and all. "Wire Strainer" has an almost distortion guitar jangle, going more reseved and when you learn in the liner notes these lyrics are about his dad it's pretty heartbreaking. Staying positive on this somehow in spite of loose distortion riffs. Confessional like Mad Nanna, they're going all experimental on a very raw pop song essentially. A lot looser than that live record, these seem to be as intimate and naked as possible and "Endless Summer (reprise)" fades in on more of that unstructured jazz, sax blaring, the keys off on their own... drums drunkenly stumbling. Deliberately primitive is their strategy to get closer to something more interesting maybe, the period where they loose those conventions and see what's left.
On black vinyl with download card and insert from both bands.
Get this from Ride the Snake Records direct.
No comments:
Post a Comment