Blue Shift

Pressure Corner

Label: Smeraldina-Rima Country: Belgium

"Blue Shift is only described as a violin trasher from Providence (RI, presumably), and the MySpace page doesn't help:

"I was born at the grave of an ancient ocean bed, cracked into giant shards (I mean the foothills of some mountains) and came of age in the Happy Valley. Started to perform 2/04, because of 244 Oak, Barrett, Sasha, Louise, Dirt Palace, B. Rule, Hartford, Squidlaunch, & ETC. Please talk to me about alternate types of skeletons; some kinds of love and hate; or adaptation & dissent with transmodification."

That doesn't explain much, nor does listing the band members as:

"I covered my lovers with flowers and wounds, my laughter the devil would frighten. My body was sharp, my dark hair clean, and outrage my joyful companion...Time was like water but I was the sea, I wouldn't have noticed it passing...except for the turning of night into day, and the turning of day into cursing...he wants to believe all these tricks and lies are just tricks his brain's been playing...'I've fallen it's true, but I'll say to you, hold your tongue until after I've spoken'...I buried my face but it spoke once again 'night to the day, we're a-binding'...now the dark hair is like fire on my skin, and even the moonlight is blinding" (parts of "Rake" -Townes Van Zandt)

What we can tell you is that the album is an effective amalgam of violin music, sometime effected, sometimes played in unusual ways using the whole of the instrument, and sometimes quite inexplicable. The quality and environment of the recordings is part of the fabric of the album, and it's a fas The album consists of mostly brief pieces that move in unusual directions, yet somehow provide a cohesive journey. Jon Rose comes to mind, but with a personal twist, or shift, as it were; Jesse Zubot's recent album about dementia also comes to mind. A great and quirky listen.