Achingly slow Teutonic guitar drones that seem to bleed in from another dimension, heavy with sadness or wild with distorted rage. Or something. Sound rises up out of your stereo speakers and begins to form a cohesive intelligence. The second track, "Desiderium" possesses the most conventional structure, providing a pensive respite between the less melodic opening and closing compositions. Truly, inspirationally great. (Fascinated by this enigmatic release, I later stumbled across an earlier CD on Staalplaat, Multiple Personality Disorder, which mines much the same realm of atmospheric musics. The liner notes declare: "Maeror Tri was founded in April 1988. The group consists of three members. The basic intention is: Transcension of the mind!" To which I must respond: A to the motherfucking K.) As with all ND releases, the exceptionally cool sleeve will provide you with something to stare at while the disc spins. --K.S.

(review date: 12/31/95)

Drone rock featuring Galaxie 500's rhythm section (Damon & Naomi) and Crystalized Movements mainman Wayne Rogers. As such, this is a fierce, romantic sleepwalk of a disc. The lone non-Rogers composition, "Sally Free and Easy" stands out the most with its sweet girlchick vox over strumming that ambles into one of the more extravagant/orgasmic guitar leads I've encountered in recent years. Emotional and flavorful like a pillar of sea salt, whatever that means. I hope there's more like this somewhere. --K.S.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #4)

This, the final studio album prior to their flaming demise, is certainly The Mike Gunn's best... a freewheeling kitchen-sink approach weaving material from studio jams, solo projects, and live recordings into a fairly cohesive whole (though I could certainly do without the sappy "Unblinking" featuring Pain Teens vocalist Bliss Blood). "Dry Nod" stands out as the hit single, a mostly perfect MG epic that alternately soars and grinds with the flowing dynamics this band could sometimes push through the eye of a needle. We will miss them. (For vinyl die-hards, a double-LP version with an extra 15 minutes of sound is available from September Gürls Records.) P.S. I did the sleeve. --K.S.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #4)

Being the second album from Houston's godrock power quartet--all fleshed out, strung out, and psychedelicized--backed with a remix (less grunge, more vocals) of their first, vinyl-only release. Poison is primarily long, tripped-out jams joyfully wallowing in tension-building riff augmentation and dead-stop inertialess breaks to produce a majestic tapestry of Bevis Frond-approved (literally) retro guitar fuzzwall. High point is probably the 17-minute epic "Mesa is Burning" that saunters into the setting sun on a wave of lush, additive production and Christina Madonia's "ecstacy sound" backing vox. Hemp draws more on the noise demon, though the fuzz has been substantially shaved this time around to clear space for "frontman" John Cramer's vocals and cleaner guitar solos (one of which is entirely inaudible on the vinyl). Co-produced and engineered by Scott Ayers of The Pain Teens. Music for stoned summer excursions and bone-weary winter slumbers. (Refer to JC interview in Reign of Toads #2 for more info.) --K.S.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #3)

The latest audio from DJ Spooky is billed under his Paul D. Miller day-job moniker, probably to better assist the public in associating Spooky-the-media-figure with Miller-the-artist. Subtitled "Excursions into the Pre-Linguistic", this illbient^(TM) work was first placed into service as a soundtrack of infinite loops for a Miller installation in NYC. Now, as finite CD tracks, the results are: some cool stuff, some OK stuff (I suspect it probably functioned better in the gallery context), and sonic frequencies of noise backscatter that seriously disturb our dog.

The liner notes, traditionally expansive on a Spooky/Miller release, spill out into two glossy booklets jammed with contentious analytical texts (by Miller, Samuel R. Delaney, Erik Davis*, and others) that handily provide a superior multimedia experience to any dumb CD-ROM--if you are up to the small-point-size-on-brown-background legibility challenge, that is.

* Secretly, author of the uncredited "Roots and Wires" essay. --K.S.

(review date: 1/18/97)

Beware the misleading title: this isn't really that much more elemental or guitar-oriented than much of Miller's output of the past decade. Only the three instrumental tracks deliver the wandering noise I was expecting, especially after seeing the photo of the one-man-band seated behind his patch-corded maze of lo-tech toys. For the most part, this is more songwriting of the No Man variety, with a little more raunch and the guitars WAY in front. I aint knockin' it though. There are enough noises of the what-the-fuck-is-he-doingcaliber to raise an eyebrow after a dozen listenings. "Repair" alternatesbetween a gentle minor key croon and manic strumming descents; coming to restuneasily in the foreboding low end rumble of looped guitars tweaked way belowthe threshold of cohesion. "Talamin Yarka" sounds like a 1968 North AfricanLou Reed. The mysterious "tonerowing" guitar simultaneously generates twosounds: one gloriously fuzzed out, the other room-miked unamplifiedstrings (uhh... maybe).

 Both Miller's voice and guitar sound much stronger to me on this outing than the last time I paid close attention. There are some truly whacked, inspired moments here--especially the downright evil slide playing. Just stay away from the lyric sheet. --T.W.

(review date: 12/29/96)

Recorded in '79 and '81 respectively, these two odd little blurbs stick out like the sore thumbs on either hand of Gyroscope's Cluster family reissue series. Unlike the purified air of the cerebral tripscapes usually associated with Moebius, his Plank collaborations are fat plodding dancehall cartoons. Rastakraut Pasta sounds like a contact-miked digestive tract from yetanother green world; remedial downbeats pulled apart and bogged down insquishy queasy bass and gaseous synth squirts. Yep, it's as goofy as that,but there's nothing in this world quite like it. This is one appropriately-titled album. Just check out the title track: soundtrack to the world's onlyanimated Jamaican documentary on alien stomach enzymes. Not hangover music Iassure you.

 Material quite literally picks up where its predecessor ends, but takes itssonic associations in the opposite direction. It's as plastic as Pasta isfleshy. It's a much colder, sparser affair; and perhaps as a result, nowherenear as successful. Its kitsch-und-synch autobahn delivery serve only to dateit. Still, its presence is welcome if only to complete the picture.  It would be difficult to get past the Eno analogies conjured here, save for the fact that the Domed One has never been this hilarious. The inside photo shows Dieter and Conny seated in front of a "Duty Now for the Future" poster. Say no more. --T.W.

(review date: 12/29/96)

This CD boasts a proficient and effective use of various "neuroacoustic technologies" such as binaural beats, window frequencies, Tomatis enhancements, "primordial sounds", and 3D acoustics (often used to generate tones at your various chakras). These techniques are engineered to bliss ya & trance ya & generally alter your consciousness. When I received the CD and read the literature, I was both excited and skeptical. The first listening really bugged the hell out of me (many aspects of this music may easily be prejudged and mistaken for newage schlock), but I also experienced an almost painful pressure in my third eye. Repeated play has proven that I feel the pressure during the same sections of the CD, so something must be working. I'm on my fifth listen now, and either I'm being brainwashed or I'm actually starting to like this shit. I'm even going to put myself out on a limb and call it downright chilling. The effect upon my psyche is becoming deeper, more pronounced. It's currently at the point where I have to either actively listen and "let go" and become engulfed (kinda like a tryptamine sojourn), or I become really edgy. Headphone listening, by the way, is nearly essential. Buy this if you're at all curious about cutting edge psycho acoustics. --S.A.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #4)

last update 1/18/97

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