APATHIST! / CRETELLA+ROWDEN “split” C35 (Personal Archives)

It’s splitsville for Personal Archives: Apathist! (Alex Cunningham on violin, Chris Trull on guitar) and Cretella/Rowden (Chris Cretella [duh] on guitar, Zach Rowden [duh] on bass) drop some improv upon us, experimenting with the sonic limits of their various instruments. Both duos feature guitars. This is a very Personal Archives style release, let me just tell you that right now.

Cunningham is no stranger to the label, and he and Trull scratch strings and wiggle strings and vibrate strings in all manner of ways to concoct the most backwoods extraterrestrial warbling you may ever hear. They scrape and strangle their way through their half of the tape, never wavering from their intention of burrowing under your skin and becoming one with your circulatory system. Sound nefarious and parasitic? Only if you truly believe that both players are ACTUALLY extraterrestrials and not just playing them on the A-side. Apathist! my butt! More like Proactive-ithist!

Cretella and Rowden start off way noisier, with a full minute or so of strange electric and string noises. Then they drop the low end, and it’s a bassfest from there on out. Well, sort of but not really. While the bass takes on a fairly prominent role (which may be in contrast to side A’s bass-guitar-less-ness), the guitar fidgets and dances atop the deep tones, making like Sonny Sharrock fritzing out in a rainstorm. Gotta love that touch – and Cretella and Rowden bounce ideas off each other like each is playing the other’s axe and vice versa in close proximity. Probably how it was recorded.

https://alexcunningham.bandcamp.com/

https://christophertrull.bandcamp.com/releases

https://chriscretella.bandcamp.com/

https://zachrowden.bandcamp.com/

https://personalarchives.bandcamp.com/

--Ryan

ALEX CUNNINGHAM “Fiddle” (Personal Archives)

When your cassette album, called “Fiddle,” opens with the only track whose “self-imposed constraint [is] ‘improvise a fiddle tune,’” what else is there even left to do? I’m just gonna stop writing about it right here, because “Fiddle,” the track, is a hoe-down stomper of the highest caliber, and if you know me, you know that “hoe-down stomper” is a code word for “catnip” around these parts.

OK, that’s not even partially true (the fact that the track is awesome is, though), but “Fiddle,” the album, shifts from moments of almost antagonistic improvisation (hear the bow grind the strings on “Rest Area”!) to graspable propulsion (hear the sawed strings rev like an engine on “Rest Area”!), yanking your attention speakers-ward with its ever-changing virtuosity. Alex Cunningham’s released some pretty great records recently, with the solo “Ache” and also “Parlance” as part of the Vernacular String Trio dropping on Personal Archives within the past two years. “Fiddle” continues his exploration of the titular instrument (or “violin” for those of you who don’t happen to live in some Appalachian barrens somewhere), running through eleven tracks of violent dissonance that are as weird as they are wondrous.

And I’m not lost on the closeness of the phonology of “violins” / “violence.” It was a conscious choice. (I see you, Eddie Vedder.)

Is Alex Cunningham better than Antonio Vivaldi? No, but no one has ever suggested that (at least that I know of). But there’s lots to like here with “Fiddle,” so get crackin’ on listenin’ while swiggin’ that moonshine on yr back porch. Or, uh, don’t do that, and sit in rapt attention in front of a $20,000 stereo system instead. It’s really up to you.

Alex Cunningham

Personal Archives


--Ryan