Artist: Blowhole
Title: A Love Extreme
Format: Double LP Gatefold
Label: Zabriskie Point
Catalogue Number: POINT03
Year of Release: 1993
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Tracklisting:
A1 Withdrawl
A2 Requiem For Libeations Of The Fourth String (Or) Would You Please Put That Fucking Thing Away?
A3 Sixteen (Four Fours)
A4 Yesterday Is The Answer
A5 Lonely Tuber
A6 Blindly
A7 Styrofoam
B1 Drone Construct
B2 Palimpest
B3 Springs Recoil
B4 Mo
B5 Instuctional Audio
B6 Cut My Neck
B7 Widgets And Bevels
B8 Wack That Beehive
B9 Fur
B10 Buzz To Bang
C1 The Head
C2 Doncha
C3 Needle
C4 Puppets
C5 Murmur
C6 Tries
C7 National Anthem Of The Peoples' Republic Of China
D1 Needle
D2 Cosco Construct
Enjoyable enough improv-jazz-rock-noise stuff. Out of the entire line-up of the band, only drummer Jeph Jerman seems to be still involved in music-making, having put about 16 CD-Rs out last year, according to his site.
Jeph's sleevenotes that give you a good idea of what to expect, "group improvs, short solo pieces, and constructs. The solos were cajoled out of the players at the time of recordings. Constructs are various performances layered on top of one another using a four-track."
Patrick Barber (electric bass, violin, other noises) also writes some sleevenotes, which give you a better idea of what this might sound like: "I don't think I will ever forget my first Blowhole practice... I showed up, plugged in, looked around, and said, 'Well, what do I do?'. 'Just play whatever you want,' was the general reply, and I launched into a sorry, fake-jazz blues noodle, which we rode for five minutes or so, and then Jeph looked up from the drumset and said, ' That was OK, but usually we don't play in time.'"
They come dangerously close on Styrofoam, and most of the tracks on Side C, which is where they deliberately collected together all their 'scored' pieces, but even these tend to go - state theme (in time) - jam noisily (out of time) - restate theme (in time) - end.
I preferred the more traditional jazz line-up numbers (in their case, bass, drums, saxophone(s), trumpet) than the more consciously noisy affairs with added megaphones, violins and "concussion", and suspect they were a much better live proposition than on record. However, I will be checking out Jeph Jerman to see if he's still drumming, and is putting out anything like crazy Chris Corsano.
