Arcane Candy

Comma lovers take note! I, Angelica is a vault-clearing double CD set released in 2001 by Pogus label main man, Al Margolis, and his ongoing free music project, If, Bwana. (Yep, there’s a comma in the artist’s name and the title. Is that enough punctuation for you?) The tracks on these two coasters span a whole decade, from 1992 through 2001, and send the attentive listener not on a space odyssey, but a sound one. Titled Nick Nack, disc one offers up six tracks of prime weird behavior courtesy of Al himself, who piled up multiple layers of such instruments as Arp 2600, Moog Rogue, computer, tapes, manipulations, guitar and steel cello.

“Furry” is somewhat sparse with repeated interjections of garbled noise. “Satind Farms Far Piano” sounds like a free-form party thrown by landscaping tools, full of rhythmic pinging plus weed trimmers and corroded desktop printers layered up in staggered rhythms that eventually fade away and get all spacey on your ass. When the high-pitched noise stops, everything gets super woozy and weird. “The Railway Station Fire” is made of grim, plodding electronics with impassioned singing. “Quad or Knee” emits plenty of scintillating, chattering electronics supported by spacey drones. “Hoffman, Bored” proffers a super sparse, dank basement with deep pounding, metallic hammering, detuned guitar and garbled outbursts. “Guitars by Al” ends the disc with some shimmering scintillations and desktop printer-like feedback supported by droning ambience.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, following Nick Nack, disc two is called Paddy Whack! “Fantastic Literature 3” starts off the program in a tasty way with a seven-layer burrito full of wheezing, raspy, deep space drones. “Walking Der Dog” features Al grating on your aunt Edna’s nerves by sawing away on a steel cello and tapping on a cymbal while someone shuffles around in a junk drawer. On “Day Back,” Al gets pissed and channels his inner Iannis Xenakis by unleashing a swarm of reverberated jackhammers topped off with a set of sizzling cymbals and rattlesnakes. “Goo Pond” keeps the Xenakis atmosphere going with deep rumbles, rattles and sheets of metallic scintillations. All told, there’s plenty of material here to satisfy the hungriest minimalist and maximalist. Another good one from the If, Bwana camp.

Label: Pogus Catalog Number: P21024-2 Format: 2-CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: Disc 1: 6, Disc 2: 4 Total Time: Disc 1: 63:30, Disc 2: 58:01 Country: United States Released: 2001 More: Bandcamp, Discogs, Official, Pogus, Soundcloud

Text ©2013 Arcane Candy

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