I believe this is my first exposure to this project, and what a strange one it is. Hell, the first track is "Dirt Off Ya Hova", a succinct Jay-Z remix track that's a total clusterfuck of frazzled electronic sounds and thumping dance beats with obscured vocals and loads of effects all over the place. Not my think, you know? Thankfully, after that, "Str8 Outta Innsmouth" opens up with a rush of caustic harsh noise with a digital sounding sheen that eventually starts to break up and introduce ambient backing textures without shedding its abrasive attack until the closing moments, when a weird sample of stuttered guitars joins in with the ambience for a slow fade. "Stumbling From the Darkest Shadows" opens with a similarly arranged slice of glitchy instrumentation that layers together with some improvised sounding acoustic guitar leads over surging background melodies that sound like pitch-shifted bass or something, and all of this repeats for a more twistedly musical 5+ minute affair that calms things down as compared to the preceding two tracks. The 9+ minute "Monster (Answering) Machine" then ends the EP, opening with more reverberated stringed instrumentation that has an ambient sort of lull to it, broken apart by staggered beats fighting their way forward under heavy effects and throbbing distorted textures - which kind of all climaxes in a manner that sounds like a noise artist trying to cover a 70's prog rock instrumental freakout. The CD-R is hand-painted and comes in a handmade sleeve made up of marker scribbles and handwritten text on fluorescent green construction paper. Inside is a small plastic bag containing a tiny xeroxed insert and... a snippet of human hair!? That's right, the guy actually cut off a little chunk of his hair to go with every one of these CD-R's. Yikes! The overall package looks a touch crude, but in a way that works, so I'm fine with that. I can definitely listen to this, and even cite some quality to certain aspects of it, though in general I don't care for humor when it comes to noise (i.e. these song titles), and there are definitely elements of this work that rub me the wrong way. I think a more fluid recording quality will be needed if the musical elements are going to play a significant role in the future, and it's pretty hard to say how I'd feel about this project in the long run based off of this unpredictable set of songs. But I guess I'll find out!
[Audio Savant]
Running time - 21:54, Tracks: 4
[Notable tracks: Str8 Outta Innsmouth, Stumbling From the Darkest Shadows]
Audio Savant - http://www.audiosavant.com
