Bruce Anderson and Dale Sophiea
Balkana
Family Vineyard
Rollerball
Einaugige Kirsche
Bathing Music
Road Cone
Forty-five minutes into Balkana, the creepy doom of dark situational drone is finally overcome by gorgeous guitar gaudiness. For some, the fact that there is no destination or plan will be a reassuring departure from the determinism of popular music. For others, this entire album is a slightly tense anticipation for that single and singular guitar solo.
Confident clattering and jazz cloying breathes effortlessly from whatever the first Rollerball release is called. The packaging is beautiful, the politics are defiant, and the dialogue falls somewhere between cutesy and oppressed. Oh, my – what a racket they deliver before some sort of throbbing pulse brings it all back together.
Bathing Music replaces the “police state wants to kick my ass for being so avant-garde” gibberish with even more nice art-fag packaging. The clattering takes a backseat to chicks with breathy French vocals and lounge jazz and off-balance klezmer and even some song that sounds like Nico could have been dug up and placed at the mic. Is Nico even dead? No, wait. Not a Nico song, but one of the scary songs off the self-titled VU album.
Family Vineyard, PO Box 2161, Bloomington, IN 47402; Road Cone, PO Box 8732, Portland, OR 97207.
