Description
Sir Richard Bishop, Ben Chasny and Chris Corsano create a glorious cacophony as an instrumental super-group exploring the edges of sound through improvisation and collaboration.
As friends and labelmates with a mutual admiration for each others work, Bishop and Chasny had begun to discuss some sort of collaboration based around two electric guitars plus a drummer. Ben had worked previously with Chris Corsano in Six Organs of Admittance and thought he would be an excellent addition to the project and Bishop agreed. However actually getting everyone together proved nearly impossible as each lived in a different city, sprawled across the vastness of the United States.
In 2009 they decided something had to be done and without wasting any more time they agreed to make a record and hoped that Drag City would release it. They booked some studio time with sound guru Scott Colburn in Seattle, performed a live show a day or two before the recording session, and the three of them got together to come up with some ideas that they could do live as well as in the studio. Prior to this they had never played together before, but by the end of the show they had a couple of composed pieces that they knew they could flesh out further in the studio. When they finished the studio session, they each knew they had made a good record but at the same time, they realized that they were a live band more than anything else.
The album veers in many directions with the aurally challenging opener
Waldorf Hysteria followed by the laconic and almost doom-laden, spagettiwestern-esque Bull Lore. Fist Family is a call to battle, with a siren-like opening and then punching drums rolling like a flurry of fists. Sarcophagi is swathed in sorrow but allows room to breath with a mournful beauty. Serrated Edges sounds like its name; sharp, uncomfortable and jarring. The fifteen and a half minute closer Plain of Jars is played with visceral abandon.
If the album is anything to go by, their live shows must be pretty spectacular.
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