Sorta like a concept album--complete with "Tigerture" introducing the main themes--fusing the talents of Azalia Snail and Suzanne Lewis in a weird, sweet racket. "Shoe/Shoe Missing" is my favorite, with its jangly sitar intro and loopy calliope conclusion--but almost everything is appealing... Lewis's insistent/shrill vocals, A. Snail's trademark slapback strumming... --K.S.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #4)

Way fucked minimalist ambient speedmetal that has altered my world for the better. 20- to 30-minute epic blasts of bass/gtr/drums that crank away in a universe where the subtle sine wave of phased oscillation is best expressed by the ear-splitting fuzztone and the unchanging riff. Track #2 (of 3)--"Seething Deluxe"--is pure genius: a slow, mellow dub bass suddenly attacked by a wall of distorted guitar that washes unceasingly over the mix, rising and falling in waves of intensity that set the teeth on edge. Nobody I know is as impressed by this as me, but then again they were all wrong about everything else, too. --K.S.

(review date: 12/31/95)

Can you imagine that the rural setting of northern New Mexico could produce the meta-pop sound of shoegazer British drone? Honey have achieved that, drawing on the sedentary, old-world pace of a small Spanish village, and building long, cascading musics that are dense but minimalistic. Ramon Sena and Willa Roberts collaborate to create lilting, beautiful soundscapes, with Willa's haunting voice texturing Ramon's layered guitar sounds. Shades of Dead Can Dance, Verve and Slowdive. --E.T.

(review date: 12/31/95)

This chaotic ambient thriller captures a spine-tingling momentum early on. It's spooky, but not scary. The music seems a bit haunted, very hokey, and (to my ears) very entertaining. It has that soundtrack feel, but from what I understand, these are recordings of live performances. Jerry Hunt was a mad scientist performance magician artist... or something like that. He built a lot of his own video and audio processors and he'd assemble them into performance "pattern-strings" based upon the Enochian tables channeled to John Dee through the scrying of Edward Kelly in the 16th century. Some say Jerry was a huckster, some say he was just a Texan, but just about everybody was bewildered and confused and amused. --S.A.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #4)

This album is so sonically amazing that when I finally got to hear it on CD after playing and replaying the muddy promo cassette I was moved to tears... it is fine, so structurally engaging and dense and textured that you can't stop listening, you can't stop delving into the deep deep sound. Really. From the perspective of her first LP Bozo (which is a beautiful, spooky album in its own right), it's like Husik has evolved into this being of pure light and wisdom, assured and powerful. The pleasure of the songs is augmented by a skewed vision of nostalgic, acid-drenched bliss--the lyric texts are like fibrillating, mystical nodes of human experience ("And if I never let you go again/a sacrifice to the river gods, my friend...")--and dynamics that are tasty and complex. Until I got a look at the credits I could've sworn there was a second vocalist--but it's just Lida again, manifesting herself as several people at once and expanding into a gorgeous hive intelligence. You just need to hear it, that's all. In my universe right now, this is the best album ever made. --K.S.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #4)

I can't help but wish Lida H. had ventured out into techno territory alone, as the best cuts on this EP are the two (out of five) credited solely to her. Beaumont Hannant's aesthetic seems loud and intrusive and overtly synthetic (as the Nine Inch Nails t-shirt he wears on the CD sleeve might imply). 2/5=40%. --K.S.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #4)

last update 1/17/97

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