JOSH MILROD "Seeking the Millenary Kingdom"(Solid Melts)

Ready to hear some super fun synth sax improv noise? Maybe that isn't a sax, maybe it's just feedback. It's rounded and slowly mimics something resembling a melody. No! It's a trumpet? Well, the background reverberates subtly and pulsates and harmonizes in odd ways. Not much structure, it's more ambient influenced.

Gooshy pulses and horns of some type. They're reverberated and sound like they have subtle effects placed through their amplification. They drawl out into noise while rhythmatic two chord pulses trade tone.

Amazing horn harmonies. Jeez... Wow. Powerful jazz noise fusion.

Harmonies are used effectively between looping keyboard chord progressions and horn improvisation. There is a nice mixing in of industrial video game negativity that is strategically placed.

Guys, this release is a real winner if you just remain patient with it. That'll be easier for you noise boys and perhaps harder for those who enjoy frantic time signature changes. It's a real gem of ambient sincerity; beautiful old world tone creating techniques integrating with underplaying elements of digital electronics.

Sample here: https://solidmeltsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/seeking-the-millenary-kingdom

--Jack Turnbull

HEX BREAKER QUARTET "Chemical Angel" & "Crowned And Conquering Child" (True Color Of Venus)

Grasshopper and Telecult Powers are two of the most high quality acts in New York's glamorous and cocaine fueled drone scene. Wait... let me start over. Grasshopper features two of the most in demand flugelhornists on today's light-classical scene and Telecult powers meet yearly at Bohemian Grove and drink virgin's blood. That's more like it, wait not quite...

Grasshopper and Telecult Powers, both formidable space travelers in their own right, become far more powerful than you could ever imagine under the combined Hex Breaker moniker. The seldom scene Quintet version of the group comprises the trumpets and electronics Grasshopper duo of Jesse DeRosa and Josh Millrod and the synths of Telecult Powers Mr. Matthews and Witchbeam. The more common configuration of this group, (the Quartet, which performs and records as a trio without Witchbeam) is the one found on this absolutely outstanding pair of tapes released on Mr. Matthews' True Color Of Venus label. Wait a second, "Quartet? Three member?" you say? Dig this: the fourth member is a fucking ghost. Just sit back and take that in!

What really sets these guys apart from the pack (besides their downright human decency and good hygiene) is the focused group dynamics and lack of overplaying. Yeah sure, one guy or gal could make this music with the aid of ample technology, but these boys keep it simple and work together to create something astonishingly beautiful (remember "bands", yeah they still exist). Matthews uses his homemade equipment to lay down the synth based bed on which the two horn players rest. Millrod generally plays beautiful "trumpet sounding" trumpet with a light echo effect and De Rosa plays the EVI, which is a high-tech electronic trumpet that sounds more like a synth.

Hex Breaker Quartet deals in subtlety and serenity and it's the highly methodical strain in their work that really makes them an essential group in my book. Maybe it's the fact that two of these guys are making the music with their lungs and the other is using instruments he built by hand that make the group sound so organic. But mark my words, this is a living breathing world that is worthy of repeated visitations.

The Quintet has a tape coming up soon on NNA, so stay tuned.

Buy a tape: mister.matthews@gmail.com
Audio samples here: http://soundcloud.com/hexbreaker
New Telecult and Grasshopper LPs here: http://thebakeryfloor.com/bt/

WIZARD AMPS "Ice Guitar" C40 (Baked Tapes)

Great drone from the Grasshopper dudes, Jesse DeRosa and Josh Milrod, plus Slaser Risk shredder Andy Borsz playing what I believe to be heavily processed guitars and keys. They told me this was a "blues" tape, but aside from a moment or two that recalls a half second of a guitar lick on cough syrup, I fail to see the connection. That being said, this is the best "blues" tape I've heard in awhile. If you've ever found it hard to write about drone music then you'll understand why I ain't exactly putting out the adjectives. But trust, this is good. These guys totally wowed me the other weekend with an intensely beauteous trumpet/electronics trio set as Hex Breaker Quartet with Telecut Powers/High School Confidential mastermind Mr. Matthews in tow. Doesn't seem like the Baked Tapes site has been updated of late, but you can contact Mr. Jesse at bakedtapes@gmail to procure this and other fine releases. The new Tiger Hatchery tape is pretty hot too.

GRASSHOPPER "Kindertotenlieder" c22 (Baked Tapes)

I don't know if you call it serendipity or 'the noise scene being tiny' but just saw these guys played live out here in western mass and really enjoyed it, got a few tapes from Jesse who runs Baked Tapes outta new york and when I got home I said "should listen to some cassette gods jams" and sure enough, top of the damn pile, there's a tape by these guys. Jammed the tape and, though different from their live set, still really enjoyed it.

Grasshopper is a duo both using trumpet and electronics and though brass / wind instruments have been establishing some pretty solid footing in the 'noise' scene the last few years, these guys approach it less from the lineage of free jazz. Well, that's probably not fair at all but they apply a lot less skronk to their palate amd in some parts there are even suggestions of melody or at least the phrasing is consistent enough that you know there's a rhyme to their crime and for me it was a great combination. The timbre of a couple of fucked up inharmonious horns mixed with the 'warmth' of their electronics (which it seemed was often sourced from their horns) was a solid match.

I'm sort of writing interchangeably about their live show and tape because the cumulative effect was similar though it's worth mentioning that the tape is a bit more subdued and the listening is a little more long form. Good stuff both on magnetic tape and in yr face, check em out if possible.

Real nice 'metal' artwork and lettering printed black on vellum.
Not up on the Baked Tapes site yet, but check back or just write to him!
http://www.thebakeryfloor.com/bt/

and their myspace for some sound clips, etc.
www.myspace.com/karlmalonelarrybird