To Live and Shave in L.A. is a cult. What once was a band (founded by ex Pussy Galore Tom Smith) has spiraled into something linked to Thurston Moore, Andrew W.K. and just about everyone engaged in so-called Noise. In addition to a prolific discography (including the terrifically titled Vedder Vedder Bed Wetter and Peter Criss vs. Peter Christopherson), you find Negativland style manifestos, mythology and anti-legislation surrounding "what / why is art?" that almost outweigh the musical message — at least that's what they want you to think. Or something. Honestly, it's hard to wade through the broken links and red herring website the group's Dread Pirate Roberts is maintaining these days. The point is that Smith, with his refusal to say much outside of his extensive art (on politics: "I don't read pop zines for any sort of musical analysis... Bush is a fucking piece of shit... America is wrong... I love music more than anything"), has done a great job at remaining mysterious, hermetic and intriguing — like any worthy guerilla mover and shaker should.

As the sleeve says, The Grief That Shrieked to Multiply is "restructurings of improvisations" of various TLASILA albums (i.e. Noon and Eternity, The Cort่ge) and "archived material prepared for this collection". By "collection", we're talking over 300 minutes spread across four CD's by artists you may have heard of (Duran Duran Duran, Kevin Drumm, Howard Stelzer, Aaron Dilloway,, Weasel Walter, C. Spencer Yeh, Blevin Blectum) and lesser-known folks that sound made up (Evil Moisture, Krapoola & Noish, Micose & the Mau Maus). And here's the kicker to determine your devotion in this age of MP3 shuffles: each CD is one long track, darned together like a mix-tape on the fly.

Per the nature of the material and players involved, the works incorporate on violence, brutality, bare ambience, awkward dancing, verbal recitation, public service announcement skits, dramatic opera-esque gurgles, spoken word and beyond. For example, on disc two ("I Offer Syrup"), the micro and macro mulching and mangling has no bounds, and the music flits from deep drone to jungle to gabber to electrical hums and sparks to glitch to eerie Hauntology to Dead Machines / Wolf Eyes territories; near 24 minutes, a Theremin sneaks in over a dub bass line to meet an enormous drum loop and both dive into a broken gamelan stutter. But nothing lasts long enough to grip here, as the piece descends into an eardrum-piercing sine wave and tablecore whiz Richard Devine's wall of sounds brand of post-Aphex IDM. Rinse and repeat.

Smith's main posit throughout his career is that genre is obsolete, and he's keen on engaging the listener "with a surfeit of information". Mission accomplished.