YES SELMA / PONY MOON
“Split" C30
(Sara Laughs)



This most recent release on the Sara Laughs label finds Yes Selma paying homage to one of history’s most infamous electric guitar torturers with their side-spanning track “Jimi Hendrix’s Spine”, and it sounds a good bit like a SUNN O))) jam sesh, but with added fiddle-work grittily bowed into the mix of distortion, feedback, and distorted feedback. Not exactly helpful for trying to do the Sunday crosswords, but it might cheer one up if they were in the mood to break stuff, but only around objects unaffordable.

The second side, via Pony Moon, is filled with similar wall-o-noise energy, but without being led by the free-range noise-farming of amplifier-as-focal-point. Here, tape loops and a more packed choir of string-v-distortio-drones takes the edge off a bit, swapping out for a low-voltage fuzz-glow around the swells and drop-offs. Maximal theoretic destruction in a minimal visceral event. 

and/or

—Jacob An Kittenplan