Gown/ Chapels- split c20

Two different takes on mangy guitar free form. Gown, as always, brings a gritty guitar bathed in lust. Always for real. Chapels has broken near-beats and broken guitar. Both sides, a gentle rampage.

c20 edition of 51.

2009.   #032.

OUT OF PRINT

Reviews:

Ear Conditioned Nightmare

Another nice split from the House of Alchemy label, presented like Rambutan/Chapels number in a super stripped down and ultra classy cover. This time around it's the label leader himself in cohoots with Gown, whose exploits are well known and always glowing. A brief number--only 10 minutes a side--means that both efforts have to be even more focused. Neither falters of course, and these two sides burn with a real glory.

First side belongs to Gown, aka Andrew MacGregor, member of Bark Haze, whose "Early Morning Missing" finds intertwining, molten lines meshing into a string twanging call to arms. Steady and smoldering stuff, it's pure guitar catharsis here, gliding rumbles buried under ringing smatters that coalesce into polygons of gray crisscrossing over flattened landscapes. Parts sound like they were unleashed from some underground vault, prehistoric and new. Some unwary scientist having hit the wrong (or right, depending on how you look at it I suppose) chasm with his shovel blade and suddenly the skies were filled with primordial squall. Really lovely, and so brief as to just get your feet off the ground before dropping you back down for maximum effect. Rejoice!

Whereas the Gown side lifts its head toward the rising sun, the Chapels offering, "Ran Past 10 Dark Houses," shields its eyes from the celestial rays, instead seeking its own inner heat source by burying downward into the dark. Not that this is all nasty business, it's just a tad less open to the world at large, forming jabs in the dirt just below the decaying leaf matter and three floors above the mole men. Simmers too though, warmed by the channels of heated air blowing through these subterranean caverns. Digs its head up and smells the logs and the mulch when the moment's right too, humming its crackling melodies through the hollowed cavities until they've intercepted one another and turned themselves inside out, skewed but not entirely indecipherable. Another awesome split from the label, and one with plenty to be found in the folds. Time constraints are certainly no obstruction here, as all those ideas in such a small area makes it burn twice as hot.