.com Nels Cline, Los Angeles's premier avant rock and odd-jazz guitarist might be best known for his work with the Geraldine Fibbers and Mike Watt. But his solo and trio works are, creatively at least, huge contrasts to anything resembling rock. This duet CD with solo artist Devin Sarno (a.k.a. Crib) is a seamless, heavily textured display of the sonic depths of electric guitar. You can hear what Cline does here in his rock contexts, but only in the loudest, most disjointed moments. It's not that all these pieces are exceptionally loud, but they are all tangled and mangled, mixing extended lengths of electric distortion and steel-door clangorousness with Iannis Xenakis-like glissandi and thickness. This might be even less for the faint of heart than the Geraldine Fibbers, but it's also completely uncompromising and scary and odd and smart. --Andrew Bartlett
J**M
(from Popwatch #10)
Three towering monoliths of my existence are Captain Beefheart, King Crimson, and Sonic Youth. I've been drawn to Nels Cline's work because he seems to stand in a terrain with Fripp to the north, Moore/Ranalado to the east, with the Magic Band guys to the west, and Nels can even skip out of that town and end up getting Spanish or even otherworldly. He's got volume swells that conjure Bill Frisell, abstract inventions that invoke Derek Bailey. He just never runs out of ideas or techniques. This record isn't just advanced guitar patterns either; it's never forced or looky-what-I-can-do-ish. Whether he's playing everything under the sun or just flat-out heading TOWARD the sun, you can't go wrong following Nels' lead. -- Jack Walton, Popwatch magazine #10
J**N
It grows on you
I have to say that when I first purchased this CD, I listened to it once and then it sat on the bottom of my pile for nearly a year. I didn't like it. I wanted the Nels Cline I knew from the Fibbers and Watt, raw, blistering guitar hooks. Solos from beyond left field. Just a powerhouse. This album is different.And then late one night after my roommate and I haad lost are minds a little bit, I put it on and we listened to it for twelve hours straight. We were sucked in. It is simply a brilliant piece of noise. Haunting, enchanted, and well worth your bucks.
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