BITTER FICTIONS “Disagreements” C38 (Shaking Box)

Bitter Fictions’ “Disagreements" starts with a simple looping electric guitar line that gets buried by another guitar line which gets buried by yet another one until the whole mess is a brand new, lurching herd of fuzzed out, feedbacky messes. The ensuing six tracks continue to erode their overall sharp edges and angular shapes in succession, piece by piece, until the closer, “It All Gets Fuzzy at the End”, reveals a serene drone that’s been lurking this whole damn time. 

https://shakingboxmusic.bandcamp.com/album/disagreements

and/or

https://bitterfictions.bandcamp.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

BITTER FICTIONS "Percolator Glitch"BITTER FICTIONS "Looper Pedal Blues" (Shaking Box Music)

Bitter Fictions sent me two self-released tapes from good old Calgary, Alberta. That's in Canada folks. Appears to be the solo project of radio DJ and music writer Devin Friesen. "Percolator Glitch" is a series of atonal live guitar improvisations processed through Max/MSP (that funny computer program that looks like a spider web). The track titles form a little joke:

Side A
1. I remember listening to I'm Your Man
2. It had some nice pop hooks, but bad instrumentation
Side B
3. I just feel that was him getting old and thinking, I gotta seem young and hip!
4. Synthesizers! That's the answer!

I've got to say I completely disagree with that statement on general principle. Leonard Cohen's "Various Positions" (1984), "I'm Your Man" (1988) & "The Future" (1992) form one of the greatest triptychs in all of music. The weird tinny production is one of the things that makes those albums (especially the latter two) stand out from most of the rest of recorded music. Case in point:


Hell I'm so rankled now that I'm not sure if I can go on... Okay fine, I will. "Percolater Glitch" just really isn't my cup of tea. I can't say that I've ever enjoyed the combination of guitars and computers. "Looper Pedal Blues" I like a little more. Kind of Lee Ranaldo inspired songs that lead into guitar jams. There's more variation in the instrumentation and rhythm here and some of the music is tuneful in that atonal way we've come to know and love from about a million bands these days.

http://bitter-fictions.blogspot.com/