An hour of two guys playing gongs...sounds a bit boring? At first, it does seem a bit repetitive. You have to give it a chance to get under your skin. By the time you reach the 20-minute mark, you'll think the Apocalypse is looming, and your neighbors will be circulating petitions for you to be evicted from your apartment. (OK, so I'm exaggerating a bit.) Sometimes this music is a bit too frightening for me, but when I'm in the mood for it, nothing else has this kind of power.
This is a relatively hard to classify album, it is exactly what it is advertised as, two gongs being played by Rhys and another musician. It is incredibly expansive, but actually quite engaging. You would think it would be terribly repetitive, and it can be but with a closer listen you really notice all the subtle things going on. Overall this is an incredible album and I would highly recommend it for fans of John Zorn style experimental music.
MAXIMALIST!
These are cynical times in the culture industry — so much so that, when a metal band from Brooklyn starts talking about transcendentalism and William Blake, your first response might be to process it all as a massive piss-take. But there's a sensible, sincere explanation. Turns out, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix was lured away from his composition studies in college by black metal's serious profile — one that's practically impervious to post-modern meta-snark. If you wanted to… more »
