CARNIVOROUS PLANTS / JESSIE AND THE EELS “Split” C30 (Moon Myst Music)


Kindred spirits here, Carnivorous Plants (aka Owen Chambers) and Jessie and the Eels (Jessica Dlugosielski and Dan Dlugosielski). What once was empty and silent space is slowly filled with the unmitigated whims of dreamers and deconstructionists. This split tape on Moon Myst Music lets each artist do their thing for a good long while, till the results wrap themselves around your brain and seep into your skin and infiltrate your lungs and probably do something to your vital organs, whatever the equivalent of enveloping them would be. But safely and comfortably, not unpleasant in the least!

Carnivorous Plants starts with some guitar and some distortion, and gradually builds upon that until it’s a massive beast as big as the sky. Well, at least it seems that way, what with its blotting out of the sun and all. Jessie and the Eels work with guitar and … sax, is it? Regardless, they treat their side like a playground, sproinging notes against each other like they’re playing on a seesaw or spinning on a merry-go-round or trying to swing high enough to flip themselves around the bar. Play these two sides back to back and you’ll have no idea what is up and what is down. Or what is A or what is B, except that you’ll see it on the tape and know that each artists does something quite different. So basically you’ll almost always have your bearings, actually.





--Ryan