Afternoon Saints – “Shirley Jangle, The” – [(K-RAA-K)3]

abacus   1/11/2012   12-inch, A Library

A meeting of saints indeed! Legends of the experimental world unite to create this masterpiece of sound art, noise and free improv. We have here Lee Ranaldo doing supremely understated tonework on guitar, David Watson on bagpipes providing a consistently tense underbelly of drone and doubling on guitar. Christian Marclay adding an eclectic??spontaneity of sound with his turntables and Gunter Muller punctuating the complex textures via electronics and percussion. (Did I mention Jim O’Rourke does mixing on four tracks?)??Three sides (DO NOT PLAY fourth side etched by Ranaldo) of improv-drone work at its best! Electro-acoustic sound collage of bubbling sonic??bionics overlapping lumpy liquids that simmer and buzz within interstellar apertures; a familiar treasure trove of tweaked oddities excavated from underwater caves and unearthed through haunted highway radio-dial explorations; chunky hip-hop squeaks churned through an industrial grade grinder erupts in a geyser of scalding bagpipe improv; victorious fanfares amidst ghostly incantations and echoes of classical guitar poetry torn at the seams within the undulating countryside. Drop the needle anywhere and forget yourself.