SLY AND THE FAMILY DRONE - Walk Dry
Love Records: LOVLP5
Mastered by Robin Harwood
In their live gigs, Matt Cargill’s noise-makers Sly and the Family Drone have been known to take their drum kit apart and give members of the audience different parts to bang, creating an effect not unlike a shamanic drum circle with the music shifting between the anarchic and the communal. From this, you would expect any recording that pins the band onto vinyl (or a digital recording) would be a pale imitation. Rest assured, this recording captures much of the fizz and vigour of their live performance. Titles such as ‘My torso is a shotgun’ or ‘Shrieking grief’ or ‘Shrunken disorderly’ give a good sense of the visceral nature of the music here, and also the tongue-in-cheek humour (although said tongue might well get bitten off…). The music tends to relentless noise – where, in this context, ‘noise’ is that branch of rock and improvised music that combines the sounds of heavy industry with layers of sounds and loops and repeated drones – with solid bass and drums setting up walls of rhythm over which sheets of sounds are layered and a hard edged saxophone keens. ‘Bulgarian Steel’ (track 4) harks back to the Industrial bands of the ‘80s, with more than a hint of military choirs buried in the mix and, in case you worry that this implies some flirtation with militaristic chic, the opening track ‘A black uniformed strutting animal’ puts paid to that, with its angry attack of thudding drums and wailing sax. The closing track ‘Tsukji’ is an hypnotic, post-trance drone that begins as if a needle has stuck in the groove and then gradually builds in tension with subtle changes and layers on sounds, ending with distant, human-like sounds , like the soundtrack to a nightmare.
This is not music to relax to – but, oddly enough, the shifts between drones that drag into their logic and crashing noise that throws you back, is cathartic. After listening to this, your heart-rate and the hairs on the back of your neck have risen, but you feel cleansed – like an aural equivalent of being scrubbed head to toe by a pumice stone.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Love Records: LOVLP5
Mastered by Robin Harwood
In their live gigs, Matt Cargill’s noise-makers Sly and the Family Drone have been known to take their drum kit apart and give members of the audience different parts to bang, creating an effect not unlike a shamanic drum circle with the music shifting between the anarchic and the communal. From this, you would expect any recording that pins the band onto vinyl (or a digital recording) would be a pale imitation. Rest assured, this recording captures much of the fizz and vigour of their live performance. Titles such as ‘My torso is a shotgun’ or ‘Shrieking grief’ or ‘Shrunken disorderly’ give a good sense of the visceral nature of the music here, and also the tongue-in-cheek humour (although said tongue might well get bitten off…). The music tends to relentless noise – where, in this context, ‘noise’ is that branch of rock and improvised music that combines the sounds of heavy industry with layers of sounds and loops and repeated drones – with solid bass and drums setting up walls of rhythm over which sheets of sounds are layered and a hard edged saxophone keens. ‘Bulgarian Steel’ (track 4) harks back to the Industrial bands of the ‘80s, with more than a hint of military choirs buried in the mix and, in case you worry that this implies some flirtation with militaristic chic, the opening track ‘A black uniformed strutting animal’ puts paid to that, with its angry attack of thudding drums and wailing sax. The closing track ‘Tsukji’ is an hypnotic, post-trance drone that begins as if a needle has stuck in the groove and then gradually builds in tension with subtle changes and layers on sounds, ending with distant, human-like sounds , like the soundtrack to a nightmare.
This is not music to relax to – but, oddly enough, the shifts between drones that drag into their logic and crashing noise that throws you back, is cathartic. After listening to this, your heart-rate and the hairs on the back of your neck have risen, but you feel cleansed – like an aural equivalent of being scrubbed head to toe by a pumice stone.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
