Arcane Candy

Complied by Chemical Imbalance and Yeti publisher Mike McGonigal, Fire in My Bones is a thoroughly combustible set of Raw and Rare and Otherworldly African-American Gospel. We’re talking no less than 88 tracks sprayed out over three CDs exhaustively crammed full of blazing post-World War II church music. The bulk of the material spans from the 1950s through the 1970s, with a handful of tracks from the ’80s and ’90s and even one from 2007. My favorite cuts tend to be early ones–the more raw and low-fidelity, the better! Take Elder Beck’s fiery, wild and wooly “Rock and Roll Sermon” (1956), for example, which preaches against the “moral decay” that the newly-emerging rock music wrought upon young people. Ironically, Elder’s performance is just as raucous as that of the rockers. Or Sister Ola Mae Terrell’s gloriously out of tune guitar strumning and soulful throat wailing that make “How Long” (1948) light a fire under your ass. Nathaniel Rivers simply stabs the stale, sweaty air with some seriously scalding singing on “The Wicked Shall Cease From Troubling” (1973). And that’s only three out of 27 tracks on disc one!

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On his third outing, New York City-based guitarist Marco Oppedisano teams up with David Lee Myers to produce 13 tracks of “eclectic music for electric guitar, feedback circuitry and computer distortions.” Like his first two albums, the Tesla tub is filled to the top with all manner of lush drones layered with radio static and hum, meditative picking, and flurry-filled feedback. On a few tracks, some synthetic beats show up to make your mom’s head bang underneath the traditionally shredding and wailing axes. One of the most accessible and mellow tracks, “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon,” even brandishes some melodic acoustic guitar lines straight out of “Summer Breeze.” The disc closes out in fine fashion with plenty of Francois Bayle-like pinging and the utterance of a long list of random words.

Label: OKS Catalog Number: OKSRNA017 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 13 Total Time: 59:09 Country: United States Released: 2008 More: All About Jazz, Last.FM, MySpace, OKS, United We Tab, Wikipedia

Text ©2010 Arcane Candy

On his second CD, New York City-based guitarist Marco Oppedisano offers up quite an odd, off-the-menu combo in the form of some sweet, shredding rock guitar that could fit right in on Pink Floyd’s The Wall smothered with deep space drones, farts and pings. This is all achieved with an expanded arsenal–including radio, midi, processed simple waveforms and spoken vocals–in addition to the “guitar and bass samples” approach of his debut album. More musique concrete darkness and random bleeping, chattering and hissing chaos keep this album from veering anywhere near classic rock territory, instead planting Marco’s feet firmly on The Ominous Corner.

Label: OKS Catalog Number: OKSRNA016 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 8 Total Time: 58:51 Country: United States Released: 2008 More: All About Jazz, CD Baby, Last.FM, MySpace, OKS, United We Tab, Wikipedia

Text ©2010 Arcane Candy

Composed by New York City guitarist Marco Oppedisano between 1999-2005 and released on CD in 2007, these 12 tracks of rich guitar drones and feedback mine sonic minerals similar to those stored on Lee Ranaldo’s solo albums. Through extensive processing, sounds like whipping wind, ticking clocks and metallic percussion were derived from nothing but guitar and electric bass samples (and vocal samples on one track). Occasional squiggly electronic outbursts and noisy feedback stab through all the warm fuzzies. Simple, repetitive fingerpicking and, surprisingly, brief heavy metal riffs and sweet licks also find their way into the mix. Sometimes, the resultant sounds are reminiscent of old school musique concrete. Fans of that genre, as well as drones and noise, are sure to enjoy this dandy disc.

Label: OKS Catalog Number: OKSRNA007 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 12 Total Time: 53:12 Country: United States Released: 2007 More: All About Jazz, CD Baby, Last.FM, MySpace, OKS, United We Tab, Wikipedia

Text ©2010 Arcane Candy