Joseph's Picks Of The Week 2/24/12 - Laura Gibson and The Gaye Blades

On La Grande, Portland, Oregon’s Laura Gibson expands upon the fragile alt-folk of her previous releases while retaining the qualities that make her such an appealing example of contemporary Americana.

My introduction to Gibson came in the live setting, where she opened for and accompanied a solo show by Decemberist Colin Meloy to fabulous effect. His tour CD Colin Meloy Sings Sam Cooke also happened to be enriched by Gibson’s strong backing vocals, their presence prompting me to seek out Six White Horses: Blues and Traditionals Vol. 1, an exceptional all covers EP featuring versions of a half-dozen tunes drawn from such acoustic legends as Elizabeth Cotten, Mance Lipscomb and Furry Lewis. While released by Hush, the Portland-based label that served as the early home of the Decemberists, Six White Horses still felt very much like a homemade document, the kind of recording passed around amongst friends/fans that slowly gains a small, devoted following. From there I tracked down 2006’s If You Come to Greet Me and 2009’s Beasts of Seasons, two full length records that showed Gibson’s talent extending beyond the realms of imaginative interpretation. Both records detailed an ability to sound out-of-time without seeming contrived and combined this with a talent to express vulnerability and loss without registering as maudlin.

Up to this point Gibson’s best attributes have been the unique depth of her voice and the tender strength of her tunes. As vintage as some of her moves can be, and there is a definitely an old (if not necessarily weird) vibe radiating from much of her stuff, this combination places Gibson squarely in the comparatively recent tradition of singer-songwriter. Folk-derived without being homespun or rustic, she’s been compared to names ranging from Karen Dalton, Joanna Newsom, Chan Marshall, Jolie Holland and Gillian Welch, all of which are appropriate to varying degrees. The distinctiveness of her vocals is similar to Newsom, though Gibson is less assertively unusual and more delicate. Also, the core of her music very often evokes the calm of the back porch instead of the rigors of the rock club, and this is certainly remindful of Welch.

La Grande seems immediately calculated to alter the attractive intimacy previously dominant in her work. With its rollicking drums and tense sonic atmosphere, the opening title cut evokes the soundtrack to a cactus-town noir, somewhere between the filmic vistas of later Tom Waits and the sturdy sound-world of Calexico, whose Joey Burns guests here. It’s the kind of song well-suited for getting a room full of appreciative fans right into the spirit of things, but Gibson abruptly and shrewdly changes tactics with “Milk Heavy, Pollen Eyed”, a pretty little down-tempo ditty with achy horns that’s similar to the early work of Nashville titans Lambchop.

In her loose vocal delivery Gibson is reminiscent at times of M. Ward (particularly on the young heart/old soul dichotomy of “Red Moon”), which is well-suited for the broadening of her sound. But she smartly takes this development into areas very specific to her personality. “Lion/Lamb” integrates a jazzy sensibility that rather than heading for the smoldering zone of the late-night bandstand is instead lightly kissed with the always refreshing aura of prime Astrud Gilberto. Additionally, “The Rushing Dark” manages to approximate a bit of uptown bluesy lamentation sourced from some ancient Columbia Records’ 78 without getting at all precious about it. Not for a second does it sound dinky or contrived. But “Crow Swallow” again redirects her energies into a more contemporary sphere, examining mildly Newsom-like territory with brass accents that recall Zack Condon. I also like the fluid shifts in tempo on the penultimate track “Time is Not”, and the bruised piano-mistress feel of “Feather Lungs”, with its well-applied chamber-pop strings, provides an exceptional closer for an album that’s over far too quickly.

But multiple listens reveal what’s perhaps the most eye opening aspect of La Grande, specifically Gibson’s emergence as a versatile instrumentalist. In addition to arranging duties, she plays a dozen instruments across the course of the album, effectively beginning her movement beyond the frequently constraining aspects of the singer-songwriter genre. This is a big step, for if Six White Horses revealed her as an fine interpreter ala Dalton, both full-length discs occasionally gave the impression that she was a bit beholden to outside contributors (mainly members of Norfolk & Western, but on Beast of Seasons also contemporary avant-violin great Eyvind Kang) to help lend her records an increased level of dimensionality. If that was ever indeed the case, it’s no more. On top of multi-instrumentalist duties La Grande makes clear that Gibson’s collaborators were chosen simply for their ability to realize her vision. And she can certainly pick ‘em. In addition to Joey Burns the record hosts Rachel Blumberg and Jenny Conlee of the Decemberists, the pair helping “The Fire” to come off like a land-locked incarnation of that august band playing for bean soup and cornbread at some Saturday night barn dance. Wish I’d been there.

La Grande makes clear that Gibson is gaining confidence and adeptness not just as a writer, singer and player, but as a musician savvy enough to successfully weave all three elements into a whole befitting repeated listens. To be fair she’s always been a fine guitarist, but nimble fingered string pullers aren’t hard to find. And her talent for self-accompaniment was also admirable, but the sort of closeness evoked so well by If You Come to Greet Me and Beasts of Seasons is hard to sustain over time. Even if that well-calibrated mood of melancholy and mortality could’ve been sustained without fatigue, it would likely have tempted the listener to ask “What else have you got?” Thankfully with Laura Gibson that’s a question one needn’t pose, for La Grande already provides the answer.

It’s nice to know that no matter how strong the possible (hell! probable) impulse toward contemporaneousness lurking inside the furrowed folds of the current rock scene, that we have bands like The Gaye Blades intermittently popping up to disrupt the tyranny of being up to date.

Featuring members of such esteemed junk rock heavyweights as Black Lips, Gentleman Jesse and his Men and The Carbonas, The Gaye Blades can perhaps register as a bit of a lark. Side bands have a tendency to do that, particularly when they lean toward a template of boisterous party-throttling instead of the urge to either break new ground or reinforce the prevailing streams of the time.

And that’s how it should be. The allure of the one-off record has generally been about shoving aside expectations and getting back to the basics of what I like to call Pure Throwing Down. And this applies equally to the rumbles from undeniably star-studded affairs as it does to the doing it for the sheer hell of it discographical asides issued by more underground figures. Actually, after giving it some consideration, it’s in the low-expectation/high performance zone of the side band that household names and comparatively unheralded toilers can join together in celebration of the goodness inherent in rock’s economy of scale. It’s where the sweet studio screwery of the Hopkins Cooder Wyman Jagger Watts Jamming with Edward or the bruising Stoogeoid mess-around of the Moore Shelley Fleming Hell Dim Stars material rubs shoulders with The Gaye Blades and their Norton label mates The Ding-Dongs (comprised of neo-garage heavy-hitter Mark Sultan and Canadian rockabilly manic Bloodshot Bill, dontcha know).

If operational shoulder rubbing between these four examples is extant (and I certainly think it is) then it’s also with the Blades and the Dongs that we can glimpse some deeply conspiratorial, in fact almost coital, communion. For in both groups (the Blades a kinetic if appealingly featherweight four-piece, the Dongs a stripped down and dirty duo) there is a determined predilection for plundering the essence of uncut ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll exaltedness. This is getting to be something of a trend (especially if any revived rock moves of a pre-Beatles vintage are equated with “the 1950s”) and I can’t say I’m the slightest bit displeased. I mean, who would’ve thought that doo-wop, Spector, ‘billy and horn-honking R&B would become a small but viable part of the current u-ground state of affairs, much less one with an actually hip cadre of fans? Not me, but I’m as pleased as a punch drunk Shriner that I can revel in this rich mulch instead of sitting on a stump contemplating the contempo relevance of dubstep. Zing!

And if that mention of hipness worries you (shiver me timbers!), please relax. The main attribute keeping this batch of backward-looking upstarts from falling into the pits of style over substance (thus far) is the endeavor of getting right down to brass tacks on cheap instruments in practice spaces over all and sundry. That and a sincere dedication to songs. This naturally helps heaps in not only not sounding like this month’s flavor, but also in not sounding like the other bands within their similar sonic temperament.

For instance, The Gaye Blades differ significantly from The Ding-Dongs in concept and execution. Where the latter actually manage to sound like a long-lost and loopy slab of throbbing rockabilly meat, the former come off like a bunch of smart teens who while out searching for musical inspiration ended up unsuspectingly waylaid by somebody’s ultra-cool uncle’s record collection, the kids opportunistically absorbing wholesale moves and then applying them to a handful of brilliantly basic songs in the admirable attempt to win their high school’s battle of the bands. Did they do it? Well, if not the damned thing was rigged.

As should be obvious, The Gaye Blades self-titled 10-song LP is very much cut from Ramones-like cloth, though in concept not in execution, being much sunnier in disposition, though by no means oppressively so. One more time: this is ‘50s inflected power-popish (read: not pop-punkish) R&R with harmonies and hooks by the bushel. But unlike the Ding-Dongs, it all sounds just as likely to have been made last week as in the days of 1976. And that’s a fine duality to consider.

It may seem like I’ve spent the majority of this review talking around The Gaye Blades instead of about them, and that’s not incorrect. Fact is, bands of this level of simplicity and directness are somewhat resistant to extended analysis. The concept is extremely basic; the songs get down onto disc and it either succeeds or fails or falls somewhere in between. But the context of the concept is always worth a few hundred words. And when the knob is turned way up so that for a few too brief moments everything feels alright in the world, the music shines like a diamond.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 2/17/12 - Cloud Nothings and Of Montreal

There are a whole lot of bands around these days that sound a whole lot like the ‘90s, and Cloud Nothings is one of the best.

It’s important to remember that for many youthful artists and bands currently on the scene, the music of indie’s explosion from twenty years ago can sorta serve as Their Own Private Classic Rock. The first big point in Cloud Nothings’ favor is that the recordings don’t register as a hodgepodge of influences strung together in the absence of/attempt to locate a tangible musical voice; instead they sound like the work of one strapping young band.

Did I say band? Indeed I did, and that’s another interesting feature in Cloud Nothings’ trajectory. Commencing with records that inhabited (mostly by necessity) the thick of the lo-fi noisy-pop zone, guitarist/songwriter Dylan Baldi’s project quickly and sensibly evolved into a full band dynamic as the good words spread about a fresh-faced and talented tunesmith from Cleveland, OH. There were some understandable growing pains as the transition was made; from my angle, 2010’s self-titled LP suffered from too many songs that felt like reheated ‘90s pop-punk. The problem was that Baldi’s hooky songs sounded great through the constrained window of lo-fi’s bedroom/basement form but suffered when applied to a bolder/heavier rock sensibility. Thankfully on the Cloud Nothings’ new long-player Attack on Memory the kinks have been knocked out and then some; it’s a record that serves as both a worthy document of development and as Baldi’s most diversely realized group of songs.

A lot of old heads will give too much of the credit for the LP’s success to producer Steve Albini, and in a sense this is understandable. Up to this point it wouldn’t have been inappropriate to describe Cloud Nothings as quirky or nerdy, in large part due to Baldi’s adenoidal singing style, but on Attack on Memory the music registers as naturally heavy, with the leader’s voice having quickly matured into a appealing rasp that feels truly complimentary to the music instead of just accentuating a sharp contrast, which was often the case the previous LP. And the first two tracks on Attack on Memory make clear just how willing Baldi is to shake up the program of his own success. Opener “No Future/No Past” hits upon a mid-tempo bass heavy exercise in delayed dynamic release that feels like something the Touch and Go or Dischord labels would’ve released around ’92 or so (for kindred examples think Tar or Jawbox), and “Wasted Days” summons up the same era’s indie-centric combination of abrasiveness, melody, volume and velocity without sounding beholden to any specific exponent of the style. That the song is stretched out to eight and a half engaging minutes sets it up as a particularly apropos set closer in its probable ability to transform contemporary club crowds into a messy mass of flailing frenzy; kinda like that Archers of Loaf show you saw back in ’93, except minus that one insistently crowd-surfing dork who managed to give you a stiff-arm right in the face (screw that guy).

But Baldi hasn’t forsaken his pop roots. Both side one’s closer “Fall In” and the flip’s opener “Stay Useless” add to the sum of his melodic progressions, and while the pop-punkishness is still present, on Attack on Memory it’s starting to channel the thornier, more appealing exponents of the genre’s ‘90s manifestation such as Pacific-Northwest wildcards Seaweed, for one example. That these more typical offerings are followed by the very cooking instrumental “Seperation” helps to differentiate Baldi’s Cloud Nothings from other past and current bands that operate(d) with one clear figure in the leadership role, a place where music lyrics and vocals always seem to march in lockstep. And unlike Girls’ Christopher Owens’ near-instrumental “Lawrence”, a tribute to songwriter Lawrence Hayward of excellent UK band Felt, Baldi’s “Seperation” simply registers as the bold desire to rock the hell out, easily succeeding without lessening the leader’s primacy on Cloud Nothings’ state of affairs one little bit.

It also proves that Baldi has done much more than just dip a toe into the ‘90s indie rock pond, making Attack on Memory a sincere extension of the far from exhausted template of an earlier era (e.g. Fugazi’s long list of instrumentals, here [possibly] influencing Cloud Nothings in a manner markedly different from the DC band’s effect on say Mogwai) and not a shallow offering of nostalgia (i.e. “Famous For 15 Minutes: Indie Rock Edition – The Presidents of the United States of America vs. Veruca Salt).

But maybe the most promising aspect of Attack on Memory is signified through album closer “Cut You”’s abrupt fadeout, which posits this group as very much a work in progress, with Baldi having thus far avoided the potential trap of a codified sound. Things are still very much up in the air for Cloud Nothings; while all the strengths and growth they flaunt on this LP are a commendable achievement in themselves, as the needle lifts Attack on Memory sounds even better by boding extremely well for the future.





Of Montreal’s Paralytic Stalks clocks in at just under an hour and it ultimately registers every minute of its running time. However, that shouldn’t be read as a bad thing.

Ten albums deep into a career that falls into two distinct halves (with a little bit of expected overlap) beginning with the Elephant 6 twee-pop era and followed by the more stylistically robust glam and R&B inflected portion to which Paralytic Stalks is the latest unfurling, leader Kevin Barnes hasn’t exactly been identified with the idea of restraint in creativity at any point across that span. And this certainly has its appeal; part of the fun in Of Montreal’s younger toy-town psyche incarnation was the boldness of execution. 1997’s debut Cherry Peel made it immediately clear the band’s (as a band they indeed were in those days) music was a love it or leave it alone proposition. With the shift essentially begun with 2004’s Satanic Panic in the Attic and solidified on the big indie splash of 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, Barnes’ confessional, heart-on-sleeve album-as-therapeutic cleansing has probably turned off as many listeners as it has won over with its conceptual boldness, judicious stylistic pilfering and strident agenda of newness.

Indeed, any curious body looking to dip a metaphoric toe into the pond of murky mascara that is Of Montreal should begin with Hissing Fauna, which remains his most widely appreciated release. Since that time, Barnes has been messing with the program of Fauna’s success with wildly divergent results, and Paralytic Stalks is the latest attempt to test the boundaries of his sound world and challenge the perceptions of his listenership. As released on double-LP vinyl Stalks can be summed up as having a relatively accessible disc followed by one that’s significantly less so. And it can be tempting to predict that in a decade sides A and B of many copies will be showing a lot more of the ol’ snap, crackle and pop of frequent play than will sides C and D. This is pure conjecture of course, and in fact Paralytic Stalks already feels like the kind of release that begs for a re-reviewing in six months’ or a year’s time.

My personal early impression is that it takes a little too long to really get cooking, not fully igniting until the arrival of its third track “Dour Percentage”, which sounds like the product of a fictitious mid-‘70s collab between David Bowie and Todd Rundgren recorded in the house of Gamble and Huff. Alas, in another era it would’ve made a great single, and for that matter so would the song immediately following it, “We Will Commit Wolf Murder”, which combines the by now expected glammy atmosphere with Barnes’ appealingly Robin Hitchcock-like vocal inflection before the song redirects into a tidy techno showdown. And “Malefic Dowery”’s flowery music-hall pop actually feels somewhat in line with the post-Barrett pop-direction Hitchcock explored back in the second half of the ‘80s, though Barnes’ weirdness is more immediate, and the relative directness of the lyricism is not only different from Hitchcock’s but distinct from the looser imagery found on the rest of the album. From there the nearly nine minutes of “Ye, Renew the Plaintiff” is the gateway to the record’s more experimental second half, and it’s easily the most successful example of Barnes’ ambition on the whole set (it’s certainly the most rocking), it’s pivot point standing as one of the release’s high points.

Barnes has stated the influence of 20th century classical heavyweights like Penderecki, Ives and Ligeti on Stalks, and that’s enough for some snipey folks to bellow the “p” word (that would be pretension) in his direction. Not me. The record’s last three tracks all show a desire to unfurl into drifts of abstraction, and I’ll take Barnes word for it regarding the specifics of his inspiration. I don’t think he’s pretending, and I don’t think ambition (successful or not) is any kind of artistic crime. To the contrary, I welcome it, particularly in comparison to the disappointingly smoothed out and safe direction of 2010’s Of Montreal effort False Priest. I do however think that his flights of experimentation could’ve used some editing (or in the case of “Wintered Debts” a few of the more fragmentary song bits could’ve benefited from some expanding), for in the end the finished result lacks the depth required to sustain such a long chunk of the album’s running time.

Word on the street is Stalks’ “Exorcismic Breeding Knife” is getting likened to “Revolution No. 9”, and if so it’s the kind of wide open observation that can either be paid as a compliment or wielded as a putdown. I won’t deny it crossed my mind while listening, and that I dug the slight similarity. It’s also worth mentioning how that particular bit of Beatles weirdness was in large part just a crib upon John Cage’s Variations IV, so people eager to brand Kevin Barnes as pretentious should perhaps take that parallel into consideration. In no way am I equating Paralytic Stalks and The White Album in terms of quality, I’m just noting the similarity in tactics.

If the boldness of STALKS’ aims ultimately fall short, its second half is far from a failure, and in fact “Authentic Pyrrhic Remission”, the record’s closing and longest track at over thirteen minutes, actually is the most successful of the final three experiments, opening strongly and heading gradually for outbound territory before culminating with a sweet bit of melancholy piano balladry that shows off Barnes’ potential at stripped-down, straight-ahead songwriting. In the end the ambition of PARALYTIC STALKS registers as a sincere attempt at artistic growth rather than as folly, and in a contemporary music scene rife with acts well versed with playing it safe that’s a real breath of fresh air.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 2/10/12 - Tortoise and Sunn O))) Meets Nurse with Wound

As they inch ever closer to twenty years of existence it can be increasingly easy to forget just how unique Tortoise sounded upon first emerging onto the scene, and additionally that they weren’t instantly beloved at the time by the indie community at large. You see, the general state-of-affairs during this period had gotten so saturated in predictable band configurations featuring bucket loads of guitar distortion and vocalists emitting syllables pertaining to lyrical sentiments that the arrival of an all instrumental collective influenced by dub, progressive rock, jazz (the dreaded fusion in particular), electronic and experimental musics could easily inspire pocketfuls of naysayers to accompany the tide of appreciative listeners receptive to Tortoise’s fresh set of sonic possibilities. Upon the release of the band’s self-titled debut in 1994 the term post-rock had yet to gain any currency, and indeed Tortoise are one of the defining groups from within that thorny and debatable non-genre. I can distinctly recall a smattering of folks both in print and in person grumbling throughout the mid-‘90s that this band’s music was indulgent and non-punk in nature. Horrors!!! To tackle the second putdown first; yes, in the strict formal sense Tortoise has nothing to do with punk, but by ’94 this reality frankly lacked any of the minimal pertinence it ever held (please understand that deriding something as being insufficiently punkly has been a go-to gambit for sour sticks in the sediment since Stiv Bators first picked his nose in public). But if not punk in structural terms Tortoise was a helluva lot more invested in the spirit of the style than a bunch of tired, crusty bums maiming the life out of anything that was once great in the Buzzcocks’ bag of tricks. And regarding the subject of self-indulgence, well ditto; conservative crabs have been sourcing that term to decry attempts to advance beyond the established mainstream norms for the better part of the last century. But I’m not making any profound statements, for Tortoise rather quickly proved their detractors to be carping up the wrong tree. The evidence can be found in the grooves of their first two brilliant LPs, ‘96’s MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE and ’98’s TNT, a pair of discs that have subsequently come to define their creative high-watermark. That’s subsequently and also erroneously the case, since 2001’s STANDARDS, freshly reissued on vinyl by the band’s longtime label home Thrill Jockey, often gets belittled as somehow lesser than the obvious one-two combination wallop of MILLIONS/TNT. I suspect the reason for this boils down to familiarity. Once a big gust of unexpected newness, by the release of STANDARDS Tortoise had inspired a set of like-minded practitioners and instigated a handful of splinter projects (including Sea and Cake, Brokeback, and Isotope 217) while the ballyhoo of post-rock had crested and found itself the subject of critical conjecture as to what exactly the term entailed (the main complaint I’ve encountered is that unlike say post-bop or post-punk, the term post-rock is simply too broad and vague a term to be useful as a descriptor, an argument I understand but am ultimately indifferent about). Suffice to say that in contrast to just a few years previous, when STANDARDS first landed securely in the racks Tortoise was being held to a rather more stringent set of, uh, standards (groan). And this is quite alright, since it’s exactly the kind of healthy give and take that can occur between fans/critics and bands, producing a dialogue hopefully conducive to inspiring an even higher level of output. And while certainly underrated in their discography, the bands fourth LP isn’t exactly criminally misunderstood. Over the years their sound has been simultaneously open to variation and surprisingly consistent from track to track and record to record, so curious neophytes wouldn’t be erring a bit if they chose STANDARDS as their introduction into the realm’s of Tortoise’s vast sound-world. Opener “Seneca” surely doesn’t skimp on the by now trademark ability of the unit to travel a diverse landscape of sonic ideas, moving from Mahavishnu Orchestra-like guitar expansion to heady space-age techno-funk without hesitation and then blending seamlessly into “Eros” with its glitchy electronic veneer gradually turning icily and angularly rhythmic. From there the proceedings take a darkly retro-futuristic sci-fi turn with the first half of the NAKED LUNCH referencing “Benway” reminding me slightly of something Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark might’ve done in their early, less commercial beginnings before the tune segues into a kinda-sorta hybrid of smooth Krautrock motorik and the sound of a mythical fusion band from around ’72 co-lead by pianist/survivor Herbie Hancock (he of SEXTANT, a key antecedent for Tortoise’s sensibility) and estimable vibist Bobby Hutcherson. So this is the perfect time to mention one of my favorite elements in Tortoise’s arsenal, specifically the vibraphone. And speaking of pleasing vibes of an entirely different sort, “Firefly” easily slips into a tense mood of neo-noir soundtrackery, displaying a powerful grasp on the sensibility of film composer Ennio Morricone without falling prey to the more obvious stylistic swipes that the less subtle disciples of the Italian master often dish out; instead they wisely choose to carry forward his methods into a  contemporary rock (or post-rock, if you will) framework. “Firefly” feels readymade to accompany some ominous character breaking into a vintage Lincoln Continental in an alley behind a dilapidated warehouse. What’s that car doing there and what’s he looking for? Something bad is going to happen, I just know it. "Firefly" makes me yearn to hear what these guys would do in collaboration with one of our more musically sensitive (and visually astute) current filmmakers. For example I think they’d be a great potential fit with Michael Mann. “Six Pack”, not a Black Flag cover (or [to my knowledge at least] a Kenny Rogers tribute) ends side one with a concise bit of their perpetually on-the-spot up-tempo fusioneering. And the five tracks on side two are up to the same level of quality, with “Eden 2”’s dirty funk rhythming, “Blackjack”’s impressively subtle dynamic and tonal shifts and “Speakeasy”’s solid and jazzy melodic progression standing out. But it’s “Monica” that ultimately steals the show, opening with a flurry of slow-jam talk-box guitar that could easily get any two amorously inclined individuals to commence with some of the ol’ lovey-dovey on a (hopefully) leather-upholstered sofa. Insert tiger sound here. True, “Monica” doesn’t luxuriate in this mode for all that long, but it surely lingers around the motif for a suitable enough length of time for you to get down to business, Casanova. So go to it, and don’t worry, for STANDARDS will be waiting on the turntable when you’re through. Go on and play side two again, frisky. I mean as R. so astutely sung, I don’t see nothing wrong with a little bump and grind.

Sunn O))), Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson’s nearly fifteen year excursion into the outer reaches of doom/drone metal has produced an impressive heap of quality work, indeed holding some the defining examples of the metal genre as admirable platform for pure sonic experimentation rather than as the well trodden zone for the pot-fueled banging of heads and pumping of horned fists. I mean, pump away if you like, for the urge isn’t a bit inappropriate as regards the sound of Sunn O))), but it should be quickly obvious to any alert listener discovering their work that its whole raison d’être  goes much deeper than simply producing a physical reaction expressed as ritual. Not that Sunn O))) disdain ritual; to the contrary, they partake in ceremonial activities such as the wearing of Grimm Robes and the use of fog to enhance the atmosphere of their powerful live performances. It’s just that ritual is less an expression of bodily motion (e.g. the headbang, the pogo, the pit, the pony or whatever dance/reaction you care to name) and far more spiritual or symbolic for this particular band. And Sunn O))) can be correctly considered a band, though they are more aptly described as that core duo of O’Malley and Anderson engaging in a multi-tiered collaboration with a shifting cast of musicians that’s included everyone from well established rock cats like Julian Cope, Joe Preston and Justin Broadrick to avant-exp-noise heavies such as Merzbow, Oren Ambarchi and John Weise. This interest in placing the aesthetic of Sunn O))) directly in the path of players possessing considerable talent was already apparent by the group’s second album, 2000’s superb excursion into glacial cascades of distorto-feedback textures ØØ VOID. On that record O’Malley and Anderson were joined by Scott Reader (ex-Kyuss, ex-Obsessed) on bass, Peter Stahl (of harDCore legends Scream and the excellently named doom metallers Goatsnake) on vocals and Petra Haden (ex-That Dog, ex-Decemberists and too many other projects to list) on violin and vocals. Not that you’d recognize them from the music. ØØ VOID’s four formidable tracks, the sum totaling nearly an hour in running time, collectively felt like being dunked into a gigantic cauldron of metallic riffs made liquid with the consistency of molasses, the flavor of pure Tabasco and the aroma of engine exhaust, i.e. a truly great immersion. I just returned to the record after an absence of a few years and through a succession of back to back listens am pleased to find it simultaneously holding both an immediate familiarity and a level of abstraction that reveals new elements with each encounter. And while Sunn O))) could’ve been rightfully satisfied with ØØ VOID's level of quality and let it rest in the hierarchy of their discography as an impressive finished work, well they weren’t. For in 2008 the record was released by the Japanese label Daymare on CD with a bonus disc of ØØ VOID “remixes” courtesy of Nurse with Wound titled THE IRON SOUL OF NOTHING, a fascinating document that’s just been given an expanded and superior standalone 2LP vinyl issue from the imprint Ideologic Organ. For those not in the know, Nurse with Wound is essentially the byproduct of classic Brit obscurantist Steven Stapleton and whoever he chooses to work with, and since the dawn of the ‘80s the name has been synonymous with an intriguing and prolific outsider aura that’s been categorized as everything from drone to noise to industrial (in the early, pre-dance sense of the term). NWW featured a dark, experimental, extremely personal approach to music making that found the “band” rubbing shoulders with such disparate entities as Current 93, Coil, Organum, Whitehouse, Jim O’Rourke, Stereolab and Krautrock legends Faust. Suffice it to say that anybody wanting to bask in the full breadth of this globe’s legitimately underground progressions over the last thirty years needs to spend some real time getting acquainted with Nurse with Wound. Hell, just start with the debut, the still wondrously confounding CHANCE MEETING ON A DISSECTING TABLE OF A SEWING MACHINE AND AN UMBRELLA from ’79 (the record that included the now rightfully legendary insert dubbed the “NWW-list”, a collection of obscure influences upon Stapleton’s singular ethos that had legions of listeners salivating over its allusiveness for years until the internet finally allowed folks to actually hear much of what the fuss was about) and get gobsmacked but good. THE IRON SOUL OF NOTHING finds Stapleton reworking ØØ VOID so drastically that it becomes an entirely new sonic object that remains in consort with Sunn O)))’s considerable aims.  "Dysnystaxis (...A Chance Meeting with Somnus)" builds into a captivatingly eerie piece of drone reminiscent of certain foreboding pathways of Modern Classical or more tangibly the dark ambient genre as offered by names like Lustmord. This direction is further explored on both parts of "Ra at Dawn (Rapture, At Last, Numbered by Her Light)" (comprising sides two and four of the set), but it’s "Ash on the Trees (The Sudden Ebb of a Diatribe)" that stands apart; where the other three sides present soundscapes of creeping instrumental tension, “Ash…” is at least somewhat about the familiarity and release of language, bringing Stahl’s vocals, previously buried under the rumble and roar of ØØ VOID, to the forefront and then combining them with a collage of sounds that includes a startling barrage of shattered glass. THE IRON SOUL OF NOTHING ultimately moves so far beyond the template of remixing that it’s far more appropriate to describe it as a reimagining or even better as a reinterpretation, so it makes perfect sense that the finished work has been given not only its own title but has finally been distinguished with its own release. To consider it a curious digression in the work of Sunn O))) or Nurse with Wound is a mistake, for it’s loaded with the uncompromising spirit of both parties.