^^I love taking shitty pictures
Arbor’s first release, like most, is a compilation mixing regulars and well-wishers of a more-or-less friendly disposition. However, unlike many early label-comps, ‘Arbor 01’ is long, lean, and covered in jewels - just like a tennis bracelet. 17 tracks, all 80 minutes. Nestled inside a handsome 18-page, full-color digest with art contros from each band, this CDr is littered not only with top-form submissions from each band, but also huge production quality and thoughtful editing so the tracks flow with little incident. I almost fear that these songs aren’t originals, like this is a sampler (is it?) or something equally misleading. That would be disappointing, because it’s just so huge (think Polyamory’s ‘New Skin for the Old Ceremony'):
Sneaky Pines play “Ice Age” which opens the comp with an all too brief Thanksgiving/Palace piece which drops off after the first refrain. Hannu Karjalainen flips it for real with some Ui/To Rococo Rot-skills; not just some immature experiment, this song cycles through breathy, glitchy beats, toy-piano melodies, and assorted layers of whispy-thin samples, including some exotic, thieved monologue. Futurians whip-out “NEON”, a straight-forward, mid-paced garage romp with reverb like the singer’s drowning. Bagels and Cream Cheese play some blown-out bubblegum instrumental, totally demented for its complete lack of irony. e*rock’s “Waves” is a little collage of gentle noise creating a soundscape of real and abstract liquid imagery – a classy exercise which seems to be all but forgotten lately; in related news, Treetops’ “Laffy Taffy” is a skilled composition of found/nature sounds, metronome, improvised sax (?), and sheets of heavy metallic textures. Pow - Raccoo-oo-oon are at their most heavy-handed and reckless on the thinly-veiled drum solo “Dust March.” The whole kit gets a workout in this quasi-free jam, backed by feuding brass and chants. The longest track thus far, it is a nice, deep side-trip to split up the comp journey.
Gastric Female Reflex get nuts with some plundercomic/thrash vérité, preparing the ear’s delicate palate for the incredible “Light Feelings” by Horse Head. A gorgeous guitar piece with tape accompaniment (or perhaps just recorded to recycled tape), the song is almost flamenco for its clapping, swaying pace. These guys (?) have long-evaded my stereo, but I will be immediately pursuing more in the hopes that their other releases are even in the same arena as this. Joe + n rocks it doom-lite, verging on that Shipping News/Bitch Magnet sound, though unfortunately distracted by some high-end (intentional?) loose-wire/tape distortion. The Goslings pick up le pace with the 8-minute epic “Sanibel”, yet keep the doom with a huge wall of fuzz-gloom and pounding war drums – the wash unexpectedly pierced by high, angelic vocals, making me think of what Lush would sound like if they grew up with Sabbath instead of The Slits. Speaking of Lush, “The Upstairs Room” by Ethelscull sounds like some 90s 4AD/Brit-pop which has had all its over-produced color burnished-down to a nice dusty-glow, and mastered to be just-inaudible (I’d say a bit too much so). Silver Daggers play some full-band post-ska (yeah I did), first with a skronky/brassy up-dance-beat, then a dark, free-jazzy down-stopdancing-droopy beat, filling out the back-half of its 8 1/2 minutes in a tense state of dirty breakdown and full-band harmony. My boys Robedoor do not disappoint with “Coma Toes” (cuute!), a buzzsaw and bass slow-burner lathering into Pruriential orgasm, hissing as it sinks into the lake of hell and black make-up. Barrabarracuda “Wiretap-tap-tap” out a sloppy no-wave party jam with great group vocals and wicked back-end reprise. Haunted Castle pick up their junior Wolf Eyes-badge with “Killer (rad) Bees”, a track that has less to do with bees than it does barfing quivering laser beams into a wall of staticky TVs. Loopool cap this fucker off with a mystic jazz of trumpet, clean keyboards, and funky bass; and like the intro by Sneaky Pines, “River of Muck” starts going somewhere rad, then evaporates – leading back to the beginning in a cycle of awesome fucking music.(Animal Psi)
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