The second one in the series is a name that gets reviewed more often in Vital Weekly, but until now I only had the pleasure of doing so once (VW 1342). There it was a split between Marc Banner and Sick Days which I ended with the words “Well done, guys!”. In the meantime, FdW did most of the reviews of Sick Days because he needs a stronger spot for the Lofi ethics of the label and the sounds. But, this time, it’s my turn again. Sick Days is the solo project of Jeffrey Sinibaldi from Ontario, Canada. He is also the label boss of Vacancy Records, a small but fun label with an affection for recycling so the fact he’s here giving acte de presence just had to be. I couldn’t find words on the what and why of these compositions, so I’m diving into a head-first approach of “Hands-Off Approach”.
The C90 has two massive tracks covering the whole side of the cassette. Not much is happening but there is a delicious tension constantly. A multilayered drone where there are constant movements in just about all the available layers. It can be anything, but because of the complexity, it’s really hard to pinpoint or analyse the different layers. It could be anything from running water through FX to contact mics on surfaces … Synthlayers out of a modular system or feedback signals being manipulated … And that’s just the A-side. Oh, wait, that’s only the first 30 minutes of the A-side. Something happens and the atmosphere has changed completely and it still develops.
And well, if I may say so, the B-side is actually my personal favourite. Here, there is a beautiful use of feedback (and guitar, I think), but the whole thing slowly evolves in the first 15 minutes into a massive wall of sound – yet NO HNW – and after 40 minutes, it’s suddenly broken into a minimal ‘remainder of what once was’ … What a great build-up. And break-down. I can’t really tell what the “Hands-Off Approach” was other than the fact that there are longer periods where seemingly nothing happens. But that’s definitely not a bad thing. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. And if it sounds good, don’t touch it.
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