Ex, Terrie / Nilssen-love, Paal – “Hurgu!” – [Self Released]

Right off the bat, the slightest hint of a note or strike and both players explode in a fury of gritty guitar scrapes and a flurry of swirling drum fills, each telepathically punctuating every tiny glimpse of music that passes by almost imperceptibly in this vortex of constant flux. No sound is safe as they grasp it so suddenly and without hesitation in its entirety. Nilssen-Love’s virtuosity on the drums is mind-blowingly unreal coupled with Terrie Ex’s capacity to unlock every sonic facet of the guitar, and then some. This all finds itself locked, however, in a scene of deconstructed grunge-jazz so wild it’ll bite your hand off if you try to touch it. They drift freely between abstract sound exploration and primal free-rock jams as if there were no tangible divide between the two, falling into cartoonish wobbles right out of teeth gnashing violence and then jumping into a complex polyrhythmic groove for a split second before exploding again. For those of you looking for direction, the pieces do tend to get more abstract and spaced out as the album progresses. Enjoy…!