Quattro, Jesse – “Closer to the Wolf ” – [Utech]

Max Level   12/23/2005   A Library, CD

Not at all what I would have expected from this local chanteuse, but it’s usually not a bad idea for an established artist to throw a curveball or two or three. The shrieking, demon-channeling vocals of Ms. Quattro in such bands as Saint Of Killers and Carneceria is nowhere to be found here on her solo debut. Instead she brings us 16 untitled bedroom recordings, tending toward abstract vocal/sound collages and weird folk experiments processed with tons of reverb and echo and such. She strums guitar on a few tracks, and adds a keyboard on #16. This CD is all over the place, as she seems to be trying to find her musical way. Maybe these recordings will be used as starting points, from which she can take off in any number of directions for further exploration; folky acoustic strumming, looped vocal craziness? Nice to hear her branching out from that excellent shrieking thing that she does like no other. Limited to 100 copies.

Ifwhen – “We Will Gently Destroy You” – Self Released

Max Level   12/23/2005   A Library, CD

Atonal rock from this New York trio: Merc on guitar/ vox/beats, Kentaro on bass, and Mary on keyboards. The material is good and loud, slow-to-mid-tempo, with thick layers of keyboards washing over everything else. Everything else is: programmed drum beats, solid bass lines, and guitar that seems to be mostly fuzz-noise. I can’t make out any of the lyrics, but whatever they are Merc sings every song exactly the same way, soft and dreamy. The band calls its music ‘somewhat disorienting?, and I would not disagree with that. For example, the chord changes make no sense at all that I can determine. It all adds up to a nightmarish (but catchy in a weird way) experience. An aptly titled CD. It will gently destroy you.