Lilys - 'In the Presence of Nothing' (spinART)

And so here begins a brief foray into the work of Lilys, a memorable outlier from the 90s white American indie guitardrome, whose work still resonates with me a ton, almost irrationally so as the future keeps on happening. This first album (here sampled as a 1998 repress/reissue with different cover art from the handmade OGs) firmly planted its flag in shoegazer territory, and only hints at its own identity in flashes. It was fine to ape My Bloody Valentine in '92 –– everyone was doing it, after all –– and Lilys on this record really got this bending whammy bar sound, just like on 'To Here Knows When', which I guess is what 'Tone Bender' is about. Said song alternates between a plodding, thick low-end by the rhythm section, and then a lightening up to let some relatively unaffected guitar strings scratch through, and back and forth and back and forth. Lyrics occasionally poke out of the morass, but it's more a feeling than anything to sing along with, and yet this is actually a pretty clear-sounding record that has pretty solid separation between the instruments. The opening cut, 'There's No Such Things As Black Orchids', is practically a MBV homage, but I still love it anyway. Why listen to a record of a band that hasn't yet found their voice? Well, for Lilys/Heasley that's not such a straightforward proposition; after 25 years of loving this band (while also finding something exasperating about them), I can't put into words what makes his music greater than just a clone of whatever was on his playlist at the time, but I know that you hear a ton of it in 'Elizabeth Colour Wheel' (complete with UK/correct spelling, a subtle nod to his Anglophilia for those paying attention). Of course his voice is part of it, a singing tone perfect for being buried in fuzz and reverb, but there's a little more mystery between the effects, as if this band is curious about more than just seeing what sounds guitars can make but you're going to have to work, and infuse your own interpretations of what that might be. The rhythm section is more than competent here; uncredited, but apparently containing members of Velocity Girl. But no member of Lilys is long for being in that band, and being the debut LP is no exception. This is quite a different record than what was to follow (though to be honest, Lilys didn't do abrupt 180s, gradually shifting from sunny hooks towards the dreamy haze of their next record, their masterpiece, into more overtly 60s/mod-influenced pop, into whatever unique hybrid they had become by the time of the major label signing). Sole Actual Lily Kurt Heasley is known as a somewhat difficult figure, a personalty that shifts as much as the sound of his band does. I've never met him but have come to feel he's a bit of a genius in disguise; to dismiss him as a soldier of pastiche is missing the point. The long track here, 'The Way Snowflakes Fall', builds up from a fluid type of group improvisation that would have fit on a Jewelled Antler CDr a decade or so later. It's in this track that I really hear a mastery of what he was trying to do; this isn't a band doing shoegaze-indie music pop to latch onto a trend, but exploring sound expression through the lens of shoegaze-indie. I guess I'm a completely unapologetic Lilys defender now in 2020, and I'm going to gush even more about the next one, but 'The Way Snowflakes Fall', with its static-industrial bedsheets and converging resonance, is clearly more than a band of coattail-hangers trying to flex their long-form muscles.

Kisses and Hugs (Raw Sugar/N=K)

This may seem like an oddity to have in my record collection but drummer Chris Strunk was (and is) a good friend, and he released this in 2001 though it documents a band he was in years before. Recorded in 1994,  Kisses and Hugs are pretty forgotten now and maybe weren't so well known outside of the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, but this compiled recordings that were meant to come out in other formats and never did. I'm not sure how this fits into the continuum of hardcore of the time or how they might be remembered now, if at all; certainly there are the spazzy explosions into blast beats and screaming, a genre known later as 'power violence', but that doesn't feel quite like the whole story to me. Yet Kisses and Hugs pulled things back from the brink and appeared to be more interested in a balance of mood and energy than just pure aggression. Certainly the 12 songs on this EP fly by quickly (it's 45rpm), and they mastered that thing 90s hardcore did where it would find a 'groove' around a thick, vaguely metallic riff and use it to slow down bits in the middle, if only to add drama to the fast explosive parts. Joe Carducci probably could dissect exactly how the bass, guitar and drums come together to make 'rock' but it's clearly visceral, though thoughtful. And for every anomaly such as 'Under the Rug', a long track with slow, moody post-rock interludes, it's followed up by something aggressive and scorching. Yes, there's a ferocious Negative Approach cover ('Kiss Me Kill Me') but it also has a mandolin and kazoo breakdown in the middle. It's not quite schizophrenic but rather suggestive of a larger vision, of a young band working within hardcore's boundaries but already frustrated at its orthodoxy. The members all went on to a lot of interesting future bands (Conversions, Sleeper Cell, An Oxygen Auction, etc.) making it a shame that there's so little left to listen to from this early projects's existence. Without a lyrics sheet, we'll never know exactly what 'Civ Lied' is about - I assume it's about the Gorilla Biscuits frontman but maybe about the Sid Meier computer game - and 'Why Do You Insist I Need College To Validate My Life, Fucker?' is a truly great title, and the song is little more than that shouted once.

Pekko Käppi - 'Vuonna '86' (Singing Knives)

Pekko Käppi's Vuonna '86 is a record I forgot I had, but it's absolutely perfect as a way to clear the weekend cobwebs on this Sunday morning. It's also a nice way to inaugurate the Ks of this project. Käppi's a Tampere, Finland based musician who ostensibly works out of traditional Finnish sounds but to say that really that only really makes sense as, to use an annoyingly overbaked phrase, a 'starting point'. This is a glowing, electric batch of songs, saturated in reverb, distortion, and other household effects but each held together by Käppi's confident crafting. There's moments of pure Dionysian hell music like 'Oilin Ennustus', where all kinds of broken, buzzing electronics explode in a total cacophony, yet despite the menacing tone it never collapses under its own chaos, with various soundrings keeping an orbit. Other tracks employ the traditional vibe, in terms of instrumentation – 'Naria Hakkaan' is a bowed instrument, probably a jouhikko, grinding back and forth in a style that is hypnotic and minimal, yet with an ineffable, devilish spark. Käppi's work always has this sense of madness to it, whether he's assembling electronic drones into a dense wall of sound, or performing traditional songs ripped straight from the Kaleva; if you have seen him live, there's always a hint of something that's not darkness, not aggression, but something else; perhaps it's just an off-kilter confidence. This is all over Vuonna '86, heard in his singing on 'Kuolleitten Kuppahan' (which is simultaneously twisted and beautiful) or on the title track, or anywhere else. A lot of these songs feel like they are following a simple back-and-forth structure, a 1-2-1-2-1 that ratchets up the pressure as it goes along but then most cuts end before they wear out their welcome. Of course, the Finnish language is extremely strange to everyone in the world minus about 5 million people, and most of them probably aren't listening to this. 'Vuonna '86' makes that most clear, with a spoken voice anchoring it's outer explorations, something ripped from the radio or media perhaps, but feeling as natural in the bed of static and searing overtones as one could be. Maybe the secret to Pekko Käppi is that he's not a 'noise' artist at all but a master craftsman, and his constructions glow with their own internal logic and harmony.

Jazzfinger - 'Mole & The Morning Dew' (Spirit of Orr)

Ecstatic drone! Thick, rushing roars of processed guitar. Echoes that ping back, jarring against other sonorities. Cheap keyboards and clanging guitars, sprawling out to explore a dark tunnel. Interplay both primitive and sophisticated. An autumnal atmosphere, like a Jesmond treeline in the dusk, the distant roar of suburban-bound traffic. Naturalistic renderings, both pastoral and contemporary.  The rush of electric energy, a current throughout, filling available space with its potentiality. Not exactly howls, but restrained cries, made with strings and wood being tapped, hammered and bowed. Treble kicked out of the window. Throw in everything and see what sticks, but refine it as it happens, control shaped through a long relationship of improvisation. It's not chaos, but a realm of glorious glowing energy. Arpeggios cycling towards a dark centre. Searing, bowed metal, pulsing through reverberating amplifiers. Gentle acoustic tones prodding against it all. Voices, bathed in static, in varispeed dictaphone glory, providing an off-centre to repeated guitar figures; the colour in the bowing takes it to different directions. Yet is always circles back.  A tape splice to end it all. 

Inca Ore - 'Brute Nature Versus Wild Magic' (Weird Forest)

'Voices by Inca Ore', it says on the sleeve, suggesting that 100% of the sounds on here are voice, but the liners state 'All instrumentals lent by Rob Enbom'. Eva Saelens is Inca Ore and her voice is certainly the dominant centre here, but these instrumental loanings give many tracks a strong framework. That's little rhythmic plinks and plunks, guitars skittering around the place, kalimba and bells, sampled concrete elements ('Stay Wild Child'), and other small percussion. Is this all due to the generous Mr. Enbom? I don't want to diminish Saelens' vision, because she's certainly the one shaping the pieces, but there's so much more present here than her voice. That voice, on the best parts, stays away from Meredith Monk abstractisms or overly affected drone-processing for the most part. Other tracks are some excursions into pure vocal waaaaah ('The Mystery of Healing: A Guided Meditation' being a good example, though actual meditation would be pretty difficult with the thorny edges to this uneasy ebb n' flow; also side two's lengthy drone work) but feature smaller, more uniquely strange/beautiful segments as well. What we get here are actual words, fragments of language – sang at times and spoken at others – all with a demented hodge-podge assemblage. Brute Nature Versus Wild Magic is drenched in tape hiss, sounding like it was collaged together from experimental cassettes and other fragmentary explorations. The short pieces on side one have a distinctly west coast outsider feel (this is from the same universe as early Bügsküll, for sure) and there's a pleasantly 4AD-inspired take, though more like if 4AD's classic sound was patched together with Scotch tape and paperclips. The atmospherics ('Rainbows and Inca Teeth' or the aforementioned 'Mystery of Healing') are fine, lovely even, but start to pull this towards a recognisable mid-00s 'sound' (which of course this was part of); a few years after this she ended up on Not Not Fun, which was surely a suitable home for her music, but the art-damaged textual pieces are what I find the most mesmerising here. The best bits of this album I think are those, but maybe it's the way they are balanced against her soundscapes. Side two is one lengthy piece with a beautifully long title, and where voice does become front and centre, moving through a series of layered moaning movements. It's a long listen and not one I frequently go back to, though the lo-fi nature is everything and the moments where it slows and rests are the most eerily human and rewarding. Breath is behind everything here and it finalises into a repeated sense of wonder, in that Saelens is literally chanting 'Wow... wow....'. The possibilities of the human voice and some over-the-counter effects pedals are endless.

Blake Hargreaves - 'The Waxathon' (Fluorescent Friends)

The Waxathon isn't a record that anyone remembers - I think barely anyone even remembers Dreamcatcher at this point, which is what I said at the beginning when I covered their LP four years ago - and you can currently snag a copy on Discogs for 3€. And that might be worth the investment, if you have an interest in extremely difficult outsider Canadian electro-acoustic noise circa 2001-2002. This was recorded live and sounds like it, with amp buzz a constant reminder of the arsenal of Hargreaves and so many like him. Which is not to say that this is derivative; what keeps this record on my shelf is my continual enjoyment of it; how it hails from an aesthetic time/era but sounds, almost paradoxically, unlike any of its peers. There's barely identifiable sounds from guitars or keyboards, warped vocals, and a sense of compositional construction that is curiously bereft of drama, impact or resolution. The opening cut, 'Who The Fuck Said That?', is completely the wrong way to start an album - the most minimal piece here, it stumbles along with occasional blurts of activity that sound more accidental than anything else. And it's not even mood minimalism, but just the sound of decayed, forgotten loneliness. By the end of the first side things have gained momentum - '2001: It's Saudi Duty Time' has a title which suggests a political intent, and given that this record was recorded starting in September 2001, you have to wonder if this was made in some form of response. But rather than contain any lucid narrative, the bottom keeps falling out, ending up like a bag of old cutlery being shaken out into a giant anthill. 'I Beat Cops Up the Rope Ladder' ends the side, coalescing into a violent, thick shakedown that's the closest The Waxathon ever gets to the dense wall-of-noise aesthetic, though it also keeps things spacious and ends with a tape splice just when you think it's gonna get anthemic. When I saw Dreamcatcher live a few years later I thought Wolf Eyes was the obvious influence, and you can hear that a bit on their LP, but The Waxathon feels devoid of any particular ancestor - that pulsing malevolence that Wolf Eyes inherited from their Factrix (or even Skinny Puppy) influence is nowhere to be found here. Nor is their the more dadistic, absurd side of the noise underground - even the title 'Jesus Ducks Jury Duty' and its low-mixed, buried vocal samples all serve an aesthetic that is far more alien than anything else. 'AK-420 War Journal' features sampled voice calls over a sustained harsh drone, I think maybe with his mom, pushing the question of 'what is music' and also setting an image of what Mr. Hargreaves day-to-day life was like at the turn of the millennium in Montreal. When it's over, I'm right back where I started - not really sure what any of it meant, but somehow altered by the experience.

Hair Police - 'Obedience Cuts' (Gods of Tundra)

This is Hair Police's second full-length album but the first where they really found their footing, and it's enjoyable to revisit it after so many years. 'Let's See Who's Here and Who's Not' explodes immediately into a lurching, violent chaos, and it's home-recorded at just the perfect fidelity. A lot of warm, thick electronics blanket the sound - what I'm struck by on the first side is just how incredibly warm this sounds, which isn't all attributable to the vinyl version specifically but Hair Police's preferred frequencies (lows and low-mids). Trevor Tremaine's drumming is sometimes overwhelmed by it, and you can hear his cymbals and snare flailing about, cutting through the mix now and then, and he's content to pull back (or maybe he contributes some other role to the mix). The aesthetic is dark, as the puke-green ink on the cover hints, and unpleasant, but there's a life in this music that finds itself during the quieter moments. The title track is one such place, where the sturm-und-drang pulls back and lets the oscillations take over. This sound-soup is where I most enjoy Hair Police - there's a real subtlety to their interactions, a tension that swells and never releases in the way you'd expect from a regular 'band' vibe. 'The Empty Socket' on side two almost approaches the Dead C's 'Now I Fall' before it tumbles down the hill; 'Bee Scrape' likewise ends up in a rolling ball of noise, but one that has synths slicing through like a ninja throwing star. Robert Beatty might steal the show on this record, but it's hard to tell where his noiseboxes end and Mike Connelly's feedback guitar begins; even the drums get heavily processed with echo on 'Full of Guts', and it gels really, really well. There's a few more Hair Police records coming up and it's funny now to revisit this music after what doesn't feel like such a long time, but was over a decade. The American 'noise' peaked in popularity a few years after this and then seemed to fade away, though I think this may be more a product of changing marketplaces (and my own interests shifting) rather than any sort of decline in output. Still, among all the hundreds of projects and bands that came to prominence in the following years, Hair Police somehow distinguished themselves against the rest, and with fresh ears and a spin of Obedience Cuts, it's easy to hear the reasons.

The Gerbils - 'The Battle of Electricity' (Orange Twin)

The Gerbils are pretty much forgotten now, but were pretty much forgotten when they were happening, too, at least outside of their Athens-based scene. They were dismissed as a Neutral Milk Hotel side project, one of the more obscure offshoots of the Elephant 6 thing, which meant they got lumped in with those bands just by their associations. And who can blame us? Scott Spillane and Jeremy Barnes are half of the Gerbils and also half of Neutral Milk hotel; the other two guys were certainly a big part of the Athens, GA pop scene around the turn of the millenium and the Gerbils managed to record two albums and a handful of 7"s before disappearing completely. And their sound is also pretty similar to their other bands, in that they are built around fuzzy guitar pop with some external instruments (horns, melodicas) as accents. This album is made up of ten songs with untitled interstitial tracks in between, some slow and dirgy and others a bit more spry. Vocalists Spillane and John D'Azzo harmonise in a very classic indie-pop singing style - not too gruff, occasionally reaching for low registers and helping to deliver the lyrics which are slightly dark and cynical ('The Air Up There' lyrically belies the jaunty shuffle of its music; 'Lucky Girl' is likewise more bitter than it's high-pitched, bright indie-pop cadence suggests). 'Snorkel', the title track, and 'Share Again' are a trilogy near the end, without these instrumental passages. The first of them is a slow song about going to the beach that keeps threatening to crash like a wave; for seemingly slight subject matter, it feels huge and monolithic. The interludes aren't filler; there's two in a row on side two, and they are lovely. They not only show some diverse musical influences with this limited palette (there's a pre-rock pop music feel at times, almost Tin Pan Alley, plus some funereal dirges and impressionistic sketches); they also serve to tie the whole thing together and make this feel like a proper band, despite drummer Barnes credited not with a kit but 'snare drum, floor tom, cymbal'. The Gerbils know when to step on their fuzz pedals and amp things up; 'Meteoroid from the Sun Strikes a Dead Weirdo' feels as punk as things ever get in this scene, and 'The White Sky' has some near blast beats behind it's shimmying keyboard licks and fast chord changes. The whole "indie pop" sound has been so maligned over the years, particularly by those who focus on the Calvin Johnson sweater-wearing cuteness that came out of the Pacific Northwest and all of the attendant developmental disorders that went with it. But I have a real soft spot for the bright lights of that movement, some of the 90s most memorable bands, who actually sound a lot more diverse and some, such as Tullycraft, even feel like spiritual descendants of punk. At its best, great indie-pop can convey a wistful sentiment such as  'Not a night goes by that I don't think of you / I watch you in my darkened room / Electricity was invented when I was left like this again' with a feeling of approachability, solidarity, and craft. The Gerbils had this in spades, and while it's hard to truly sonically separate them from that genre, they, like many of the best examples of any scene, stand apart.

The Garbage & The Flowers - 'Eyes Rind as if Beggars' (Bo'Weavil)

If you wait long enough, eventually everything gets reissued. I had this for over a year and only just now realised there was a CD stuck inside, but my CD player is broken at the moment so I'm not sure what's on it. Maybe I should pay closer attention to things I purchase. In the New Zealand hall of fame, this band occupies a special place, though really they should qualify for the regular ol' "music" hall of fame, if such a thing existed. Thank gosh it doesn't. Originally released in 1997, this double LP is mostly made of lo-fi live recordings, documenting this anarchic, shambolic mess of a band that nonetheless managed to captivate enough listeners to warrant this deluxe reissue, many years later. This is guitar music, occasionally erupting into piles of dissonant feedback and distortion, but it's not the slightest bit aggressive. This is dream music, though it never seduces you with anything too easy or too confectionary. Singer Helen Johnstone and guitarists Yuri Frusin and Paul Yates are the yin and yang, with her gorgeous voice and their hell-guitars pushing and pulling, but the drummer is nothing to scoff at either - this was really perfection, more than the sum of their parts, because of (not 'despite') the rough edges. The album feels more like a collection of whatever was lying around, a document that this existed, rather than a focused project, and I couldn't imagine it any other way. The notes bend and shimmer ('Holy Holy Blue' feels like it's barely held together at all), the recordings sound like their all made during the last night on earth, and the feeling is all warmth and magic, mostly creeping in from the edges. The walls of guitar on 'Nothing Going Down' and 'Rosicrucinn Lover' are almost devotional; they take over the space but never feel self-indulgent. Maybe it's just the Velvet Underground taken to the logical conclusion if it was 25 years later and on the other side of the world, but I love it. There's a quality to a lot of music from New Zealand -- Alastair Galbraith, I'm looking at you -- that is spooky, reverent, and open. This record is saturated in that, while seemingly laid on a fun jammy indie-rock structure. This is all romance without cynicism, a testament to the powers of noise and the energy within a band unit. And it's simple too - listen to 'Nothing Going Down at All' or 'Carousel' - this could be you or I. It's inspiring, and it makes me feel young and old at the same time, and I'm gushing here but I'm just so fucking grateful that this band existed.

Frosted Ambassador (Kindercore)

The Frosted Ambassador is another in the long line of pseudo-anonymous LPs, except the man behind this one (Eric Harris of Olivia Tremor Control) never was very good at keeping the secret. Naming the project after an existing Olivia Tremor Control song (and one that Harris's drumming played a prominent role on) was a dead giveaway, and when I asked him in person years ago if this was his work, he denied it with a knowing smirk. Anonymity isn't necessary though; this isn't particularly mysterious music, descending from the Olivia's neo-retro-psych pop (and I realise 15 years after their heydey, the "neo" and "retro" parts of that silly descriptor are already anachronistic and meaningless). This is largely instrumental, but has a bit of singing on a few of the untitled songs (where space is provided on the sleeve to write in your own song titles) - mostly on the opener, which is a real barnstormer. This could have all the members of Olivia Tremor Control playing on it, because the trademarks are all there: 4-track psychedelia that pushes the limits of the format's fidelity in occasionally spellbinding ways; thick, fuzzy basslines; steady, often marching band-styled drumming, and lots of little instruments peering around the cracks. Everything is pretty organic, including the electronics, which are limited to tape manipulations,  simple Casio tones and beats, and effects-pedal processing. It's as colourful as the album art indicates, with fluttering rock chords offset by chimes, bells, ethnic instruments (though played in a fairly major-key manner), and the occasional field recordings or other samples. It's very palatable accessibility, and it really stands up nicely against the Olivia's "proper" albums. The more goofy, erratic parts are built around the tape manipulations, which even when they jerk around in a start-stop way, they have a warm melodiousness to them. The penultimate track is the deepest work, with thick slabs of sound over which a million melted video games battle for some sort of supremacy. Maybe this is the record for people who would like Olivia Tremor Control if they removed all of the Beatles influence - if you wanted OTC to sound more like Bügsküll, here's your ticket.

Deerhunter - 'Cryptograms/Fluorescent Grey' (Kranky)

Somehow Deerhunter have crept into my life and become this powerful, meaningful band - the kind of rich n' deep artistes that fulfill almost everything I'm looking for in music (but struggle to continually find as I get older). Big words I guess, but I mean them -- there hasn't been an indie/rock artist that I've connected to this much in years. My love affair really began with Microcastle, but Cryptograms, the predecessor, is also fantastic. It's a strangely structured album, and this 2xLP reissue spreads it awkwardly over three sides, making it even harder for me to view it through the traditional bipartite rock album lens. Deerhunter would have never belonged on Kranky during their early Labradford/Bowery Electric/Tomorrowland days, but in recent years the label has embraced more song-based efforts and this record's pretty much a perfect fit. Bradford Cox began his ascent into the pantheon of great contemporary songwriters here, but it was a sneaky climb. Some of the catchiest songs on Cryptograms are crammed into the back, like 'Strange Lights' and 'Haze St.' - the former could have been a bright, brassy college radio hit, at least in my college days. In terms of album sequence,  Deerhunter here continually shift between the songs and the more ambient workouts, of which 'White Ink' and 'Red Ink' are the centerpieces. The most brilliant thing about Deerhunter is not this dichotomy though, nor the moments of integration when the sound exploration is built around a strong song (such as the dazzling title track, or the thunderous 'Octet'); the brilliance is in Cox's songwriting, which attains some of the most true melancholy I've ever listened to, but in a subtle way. Emotionally, Cryptograms doesn't jump out at me as much as the later records, but I haven't really invested myself in this album as much as the subsequent two. I know that any investment will pay off as it has for Microcastle and Halcyon Digest - this is a band in a brilliant run of music right now and I don't know where it's going to end. Cryptograms is building up to this wave, but not quite there yet. However, this lovely gatefold release is packaged with the Fluorescent Grey EP, and this is precisely the moment where the brilliant run begins. These four songs are about as perfect as things get, Deerhunter's Watery, Domestic. I really do think of Deerhunter like Pavement because I think Cox might be my favourite songwriter since them, and there seems to be as much depth, to me, in these songs, as in Malkmus's 'Greenlander' or 'Home'. The title track of the EP is where the creep factor begins - it's an exploration of death and obsession, lyrics almost perfectly underwritten, and it's just a great achievement. 'Dr. Glass' sets down a misleading groove with a fun woodblock/handclap accent, though it's about useless bodies. And this is what I love again - the subtle darkness, disguised by a flamboyant, psychedelic colour, yet it's not exactly like other psych music. 'Wash Off' is among my favourite Deerhunter songs too, and an excellent way to end (more so than 'Heatherwood' ends Cryptograms, which seems to demand a nonexistent coda). It's sharp and smooth at the same time, twisting around with wicked caresses. "I was sixteen" is the refrain, the counterpoint to "You were my god/in high school", making this EP really about adolescence, which of course rhymes with fluorescence. So fucking good. Please keep it coming.

Axolotl/Mouthus - '12 25 04' (Olde English Spelling Bee)

One of the few recorded meetings of Karl Bauer and his good friends Mouthus, this was done on a Christmas Day in New York, half a decade ago, and one doesn't have to strain to hear cold, blustery winds and winter moods soaking through. But it's also got the feel of a cramped, busy New York rehearsal room, as the spacious drones on side 1 eventually contract into a swirling game of bumper cars on side 2. The rock part of Mouthus' free rock game is subdued; it sounds like Axolotl is leading the charge. The drones and atmospherics that open this up are slow, as if they're more concerned with setting a pace than displaying surprising textures. The color palette isn't monochrome, but maybe carefully chosen (making this cover art a good choice). Yet, it all converges towards the horizon. The murkyness eventually takes over, but the bubbly organ part on side 2 is everpresent, producing a nice reference point for the grinding dirge to define itself against. Motion is slow, but there. With a pair of headphones and some determination, I'm sure this could take me to a special place. But as casual office ambience it suffers, too easy to tune out unless played too loud to make anything else possible. Is this type of music really aggressive in the way it demands serious listening?