Ambarchi, Oren / Rowe, Keith

Squire

Label: For4Ears Country: Switzerland

Archival recording of this duo's opening set, recorded live at The Loft in Cologne on March 3, 2002. Lovingly recorded with attention to detail, this release beautifully captures the two guitarists creating their own sonic universe in real-time. Gorgeous audial density to utterly submerge yourself in.

This is the last instalment on the triology that started with Honey Pie and Flypaper.

"Squire possesses attributes and stamina to spare, revealing itself in all its staying power. The set starts with a hoard of subsonic rumbles which instantly caused my woofers to try and come out running away. About seven minutes into the piece, earth loop and radio voices have already established a reign of terror, different hues of natural earmuffing that could have an explosion near your house going almost unnoticed. The huge wall of low frequencies encroaches our mental control but leaves a few doors ajar for penetrating shortwave calls that better define the frame of questionable lethargy that this music causes. Inexorably, new emissions start giving the picture a more abstract quality and it's right there that a higher percentage of distortion is delivered, together with additional radiophonic intrusions, in a section of economical lucid surrealism that identifies the territory around the halfway mark. By now we've been inducted in "Roweland" and there's no way out in sight, as crackling discharges, scraped nonentities and semi-paralyzed cybernetic birds would all love to be portrayed in the family album photo, cell phone interference and electrostatic pulse riding the crest of a mercurial wave of uneasiness. At the half-hour point, the catharsis is fully operational and the ground-shaking vibrations are felt through the spine up to the skull (and down to the kitchen, my wife calling me with impressed excitement after feeling the floor quivering under her feet). A black cat is also attracted; he comes, peeps and goes - and I believe he heard things that I missed. I finally surrender to Ambarchi and Rowe's authority: do what you want of me."-Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes