M-E-C - Music News » 2007

While I’ve enjoyed every Starving Weirdos release, this release may be the best I’ve heard. A side project under the name RV Paintings featuring one of the two Weirdos and two of his brothers, Trinity Rivers quells the expansive oozing drones of the Weirdos duo, turning them into drifting, grey industrial soundscapes, like Labradford or some other 90s Kranky artist doing Morricone or maybe scoring a screening of Metropolis (the silent movie, not the anime). Rubbed wine glass lips and echoed animal-like cries swirl around the space like a fog. Little light enters, but it refracts against the hard steel structures protruding out of the guitar strings and amplifiers, creating a heavy spectrum of obtuse tones. If this were a CDR run, it would be long gone and available to only those who deal with (or to) the Weirdos family personally, but Root Strata has made this a full CD release with handsome (and fitting) greytone covers. Worth it.

Posted on August 28th, 2007 by admin
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Quetzolcoatl - Living (Leaf Trail)

One of little exploited aspects of recording music is the ability for a room to shape sound. Dialing In uses this amazingly well. On this release, Quetzocoatl (aka Tim Hurley of the now defunct Bonecloud) also puts it to very good use. Made from a seemingly humongous catalog of old solo piano recordings, Hurley plays them loudly through strained speakers and captures the results. The sound is morphed both through the electroacoustics of the speakers being pushed to their limit and the sound signature of the room to create something entirely different from the source. While in Dialing In’s case, the result ends up melted and decayed, in Hurley’s case, it ends up softer and prettier, like it’s capturing the sounds of the ghosts of the room inside the scattered piano and voice fragments. While the music works better as incidental or background music - making for a lovely backdrop to a quiet day - than it does in focused, headphone listening, what is remarkable about the album is how personal it seems. A few bits of piano playing or a few wordless vocals would seem to be about as impersonal as music can be. But by capturing the space around him equally as much as the notes he is playing, you feel side-by-side with Hurley for a very intimate recording.

Posted on August 28th, 2007 by admin
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RV Paintings - Trinity Rivers (Root Strata)

Quetzolcoatl - Living (Leaf Trail)

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