CHRIS COOPER BILL NACE DUO "I'm Fucking In A Sitting Room (For Nmperign)" (Night People)

Okay. So the title presumably refers to Alvin Lucier's composition, "I Am Sitting In A Room." And it's dedicated to the Boston EAI duo of Bhob Rainey and Greg Kelley, Nmperign. Listening to the sides of this tape, I cannot glean why either of these extra-musical references is present. The music does not have the space, subtlety or focus of Nmperign, nor does it have the purity of concept associated with Lucier's piece. And it certainly doesn't try to. These are not criticisms. In fact, I point them out only because I expected a much more literal tribute after reading the title. The tape is quite good, really. Bill Nace (of Vampire Belt) teams up with Chris Cooper (of Fat Worm of Error) for a blistering double guitar freakout. Imagine the moment-to-moment logic of a Spontaneous Music Ensemble improvisation with the aggressive guitar histrionics of a 1970's Glen Branca group. (For fellow Los Angeles dwellers, it's like a less prissy version of Open City.) The music is a little too dynamic, I fear, for the cassette medium. There's a lot of loud-then-quiet-then-loud stuff where the changes are too drastic. It goes from way-too-distorted to eclipsed-by-tape-hiss all throughout. (A CD or fancy vinyl reissue would be phenomenal). Also, there's a lot of fun play with the stereo spectrum-- towards the end of side A, there's a section where percussive sounds conjure images of a cartoon construction site, ping ponging back and forth from speaker to speaker. And how can you not be charmed-- the B side is dominated by hilarious laser sounds.

NORTHAMPTON WOOLS (Bonescraper)

Northampton Wools (shouldn't there be another "H" in there?) is the furious double electric guitar project of Bill Nace (from the always magnificent Vampire Belt) and Thurston Moore. Even before listening to this, I have to appreciate it soley on principle. Plenty of people in the underground resent Moore for being (easily) the wold's most famous fan of noise/experimental/weirdo music, and therefore theee major tastemaker in the culture. It's him and The Wire, really, and even that magazine mostly cows to Moore's taste when it covers music made by Americans. However: I believe this should be viewed as a positive thing. The system may seem a bit hegemonic, and no, that's not really healthy, but at least the weirdos have some representation in (what could be considered) mainstream music. How many noise artists have played for the largest crowds they've ever seen because Moore invited them to play one of the All Tomorrow's Parties Festivals he curated? How many total freaks have been allowed to open for Sonic Youth over the years? And nobody supports DIY music as consistently as Moore. Label heads will tell you: he's often the first person to order a new batch of tapes; his cassette collection must be fucking epic. Having said that, Moore should be appreciated also, not just as a consumer of weird music, but as a producer of it. The dude is on Geffen. His basement vanity label is distributed by Universal. And yet he still puts out tapes on labels that nobody's ever heard of to help them get a leg up. Such would seem to be the case with this double c24 of free skronk firemusic. It sounds pretty much like you would imagine: not much subtlety here. Both tapes have the structure of Dynamic Harsh Noise with the sound palette of Psych Rock. Lots of string scraping and feedback, not much interaction or variation. Not sure why they needed to put out two whole tapes of this stuff, but it's nice enough-- certainly serves its purpose. Plus the packaging is totally sweet-- one of those compact double cassette cases like from the old days, with cool drawings of hair on it.

BILL NACE + CHRIS COOPER (Open Mouth)

Tense, harrowing and insane improv guitar convo between these 2 chaos kings. Nace knows how to work form-eating string abuse better than anyone, and Cooper’s phat, worm-needling error approach has a billion micro-lesions of cellular complexity. They ping-pong psycho-ward screams and springs and scrapes and scoops (?!) and whatever other non-Guitar Center axe madness they can forge across this liberating magnetic tape tie-dying session. Vibe is vast though, ranging from atom-splitting frenzies to warped, hallway-vibration meditations. Only for cult/grim fans of “psychic fucked madness.” High art so high it’s obliterated in the ionosphere.