Eubanks, Bryan / Jenkins, J.P.

Multi-Key Coming/DCW #8 / Rough Metaphors [VINYL]

Label: Olde English Spelling Bee Country: USA

"Bryan Eubanks (of GOD) delivers a throbbing wall of distressed electronics that is 'indeed heavy at intervals but also makes a cognitive transparent treatment' according to the cryptic liner notes. To further quote the liner notes: '...this music is a tool for is is sunk that in a different interpellation than overleving neccasitates.' What? For his side, J.P. Jenkins (of Ghosting, Portland Bike Ensemble) layers acoustic guitars in a psychedelic, personal style that's more intuitive and exploratory than technically inclined. His unique approach completely sidesteps any of the current neo-folk/fingerpicking trends and goes for something far more organic and amorphous."-OES

"Oh sure Bryan Eubanks (he of Collective Jyrk cohorts GOD) plays electronics on his side, but it ain't like that. "Multi-Key Coming" is a side-long black hole, a singluar pulsing drone birthed out of some kind of homemade synth modulator no doot, quietly but persistently quivering like the Blob with a hard-on, or thereabouts. As soon as the needle hits it's nary impossible to wrench your head away, much like Susan Alcorn before, 'cept rather than charm and intrigue this one just straight up gnaws through the brainstem and into the minds of all those it comes into contact with. All I can say is turn it up real loud because that's where all the action takes place in this concrete slab of noise minimalism. For fans of Hive Mind, Zbigniew Karkowski, Yellow Swans, Damion Romero and sweet, sweet death.

Jean-Paul "J.P." Jenkins' side, "Rough Metaphors", is all guitar based, but again not in the matter you'd probably anticipate. It's a long n' weird slab of barefoot around-the-house acoustic guitar improvisations (I may have heard a sitar?) played in generally loose and sparsh fashion with all kinds of background clatter and oddities to make you wonder just what the hell was going on when this was laid to tape. J.P.'s style is pretty all over the place, with Derek Bailey as the prominent figure but Fred Frith, Keiji Haino, Loren Connors and Eugene Chadbourne all springing to mind when drawing comparisons. Which is to say it doesn't sound like much else, at least. On the other hand, I can't help but think it sounds kinda slapped off 'cause it isn't always an attention-grabber, and it's also got a heavy sense of "well, what should I do next?" experimentation to it. And I spose that could be a bug to you if you were in a hurry. I dunno, I'm conflicted on the whole, maybe I need to spend more time with it. I do like it as an offset to the Eubanks' side, it's so different it made me forget what record I was playing - I caught myself trying to remember if I was on side one or two and if I had another side left to go before I realized it was a split and I'd already heard Eubanks' stone soup. This one's limited to 300 all told and has individually screened covers, not to mention an innard xerox that registers a 10 on the "what the fuh" scale.As of July 2007 there were supposed to be two new OESB's to speak of, one from PussyGutt (?!) and another from Squim. Dunno if they came and went already, I don't think so, so those'll probably be worth paying mind to as well.-Outer Space Gamelan