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REVIEWS
AQUARIUS
The title
pretty much says it all, if you
were to pronounce it "odd
lot." That should go without
saying for any given Nurse With
Wound record, and this one certainly
qualifies, even though technically
Od Lot shouldn't be considered
a proper Nurse With Wound record.
Rather, this is a four-way split
between the four touring members
of Nurse -- Steven Stapleton,
Colin Potter, Andrew Liles, and
Matt Waldron - each offering a
set of solo tracks. Colin Potter's
pieces are worth the price of
admission alone, with the first
being a creepy, creepy horrordrone
that ranks as some of the finest
that we've heard from Colin. Hissing
pulses swell into an undergirding
rhythm that guides a series of
undulating, arching tones. Much
closer to a really dark Biosphere
or maybe even some of the later
digitally sculpted Zoviet France
pieces. His second piece plods
with a mechanoid plod culminating
in a huge guitar crescendo. It's
surprisingly straight forward
for a Nurse With Wound project;
but it's actually pretty damn
amazing, more like a brighty rendered
Troum or Nadja piece. Mr. Liles
offers a series of dada-exotica
following his contributions to
The Bacteria Magnet with some
fucked-up skronk laced around
slinky disco cuts with funky wah-wah
guitars and freakish whisperings
upfront in the mix. The Stapleton
track features a vulgar rant by
Hazel Two-Twigs against an unknown
Texan hipster, who probably had
"it" coming to him;
and Stapleton's backing noise
is a signature, wild collage of
splutter, squiggle, low-slung
prog basslines clinging to a breakcore
rhythm (remember his long-promised
hip-hop album?). Waldron's solo
track is a splattered semi-improv
number for bass, guitar, and drums,
more in keeping with what's been
found on his Perekluchenie album
and some of the proggy live material
he's done as irr. app. (ext.)
in recent years
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