Excerpt – “The Caribbean. Shadowy quintet (perhaps trio?) draped in velvet enigma. Or maybe justc on a light-beer budget, faceless contributors scattered hither and yon, submitting stealthy sonic fragments via telephone transmissions and paper-airplane parachute drops. Descended from primo D.C. agitpop, old-school division. Certainly of the Dischord tribe (see: the flip attitude of the Make-Up or Jawbox’s raw edge). But also Eggs. And Tsunami. The coy pop-culture savvy of Unrest (witness witty wordplay on “Annunciator Zone”: “All those great Chicago bands like King Crimson and Kraftwerk or that one that sounds like Tortoise”). Third albums. The landscape littered with the bleached skeletons of Zen Arcade and Zenyatta Mondatta. Third. Or even III. But this—History’s First Know-It-All—is knowing. Cynical, yet naively hopeful. Apropos of crushed feelings. Household appliances. Class of ‘83, UCLA. All lovingly rendered in illegible, handwritten scribble-scrawl and plunked down erect beside sounds both found (celery crunching) and created (piano backdrops, drum stutters, nylon-stringed guitar webs). Glorious eclecticism or hipster fence-straddling? More the former than latter. Purposefully arcane and brainy-sounding hangtags: “Fresh Out Of Travel Agent School.” “It’s Unlikely To Settle The Difference.” (Todd Rundgren fans, in this day and age? Why not?) The verdict: difficult but rewarding, albeit in that William Carlos Williams kind of way. So much depends upon/A third longplayer/Glazed with dour postures/Beside the white women.”
Hidden Shoal MixTape
