Love Earth Music does not restrict itself to one style of noise, which is great for some and a nightmare for others. What people would consider a disadvantage is that buying everything blindly may lead to an occasional ‘why the f*** did I …” if something is out of your comfort zone. On the other hand, an advantage is that if you follow the label a bit – like we do at the office because of promotion and such – you get into contact with a lot of different music, old and new names and experiments which we otherwise probably never would have heard of. And sure, that new music can be hit or miss, but you will also know in the meantime that Love Earth Music generated a lot of ‘hits’ in my book.
So, now you’re all expecting me to write down that Peace & Love, a noise improvisation band existing of Jay Jolly (drums) and Slater Clampitt (voice & electronics), is the first ‘miss’, but sadly, nope. I reserve the ‘nope’ for music that has no place in my collection, and “New American Nihilist” deserves a place. The project makes a kind of jazz-rock experimental music with a minimal approach to (for lack of better words) ‘songwriting’. It’s pure emotion being expressed here. Anger (just listen to the noise in “Freedom and Me”) or cries of despair reflecting unanswered love (“RSVP”) come to mind.
This week I was at a noise event, and one of the bands playing had live drums, a guitarist and someone doing vocals/noise. During that performance, I thought it was an excellent addition to the otherwise maybe static evening of knob twiddlers, but I wouldn’t get an album to bring home. The final track of “New American Nihilist” emphasizes this because this live recording has everything that the first four tracks may lack (because it’s effing loud). Still, the live track lacks a bit of the depth of the electronic layers, for example, on “Freedom and Me”. Having said all, this is a noise style that wasn’t in my collection until now. And I’m thankful for the introduction.
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