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threads:
experimental-instruments
art-punk
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| | table of the elements (usa) #toe 811 cd
radium (usa) #r 88 cdneptune “gong lake” compact disc - silver pool (1:33)
- grey shadows (4:25)
- paris green (3:50)
- purple sleep (4:15)
- yellow river (4:17)
- copper green (2:38)
- blue glass (3:08)
- black tide (4:23)
- red sea (5:37)
- ebbing (0:50)
| cause celebre; pretty much the first mass-market album by one of boston’s longest-running experimental rock bands, neptune. i remember the first time i saw jason sanford’s guitars hanging in the stairwell of the e.u. wurlitzer shop on mass. ave (thankfully now r.i.p. - fucking awful place...) - garishly sharp things forged of scrap iron w/nails for frets - i couldn’t even begin to imagine the sort of music that would get played on these; until i caught the band at an outdoor concert on the m.i.t. (or was it tufts?) campus a few years later (maybe jessica rylan was playing bass w/them at that stage? no? they did collaborate w/her recently on that lp on golden lab) - their angular-yet-somehow-also-tribal-sounding art-punk piqued my interest, having just discovered savage republic, the fall, & crash worship (all fairly good reference points for their sound ... at the time at least)
in the intervening years they’ve mixed things up considerably - we’ve shared a few bills over the last year-or-so & i must say that their current stage-show (an entire vansworth of repurposed wwii era surplus electronic crap, carefully rewired by the band & controlled by jason & mark mainly by flipping lightswitches ::
... along with a full complement of jason’s guitars & dan’s by-comparison traditional drumkit) is terrifying; and quite a sight/sound to behold ...
this record consists of short art-punk lineage songs built around repeating electronic patterns (not too dis-similar to the silver apples in that regard) and jason’s at-times indecipherable prose. it all sounds great, a kind of almost primitive calculators / suicide-esque flair resounds throughout ... |
| | table of the elements press release... |
| behold: neptune, the most harrowingly original band on this planet — or the next. its three members are equal parts musicians, sculptors, scientists, blacksmiths, electricians, and industrial machinists; relentlessly inventive, possibly sane. together, they construct all of their instruments, forging guitars and drums out of circular saw blades, gas tanks, oil drums, bike parts, vcr casings, and miscellany from the trash. electronics, and even cords, are homemade as well. the combined effect is a bizarre, post-apocalyptic mélange of steel, iron, wire, rust, rivet, knob, and cable; it's lunacy, arc-welded for maximum destruction. concerts are seizures of motion. wearing 40-pound guitars assembled entirely from scrap metal, the members don't play their instruments — they battle them, like mechanized golems.
but make no mistake, this is not simply art with sharp edges and serious customs issues. neptune rocks. hard. recalling the slapdash angularity of the fall, the rhythmic ack-ack blasts of this heat, and the sheer proto-clangor of einstürzende neubauten, they count as one of the best experimental rock bands of any era. their dynamic, expertly wrought songs and skilled improvisations don't start; they explode. gong lake is the band's first unlimited cd release, and with it listeners will discover what fans of their live shows have known for years: neptune is otherworldly. |
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