03/29/12: Anywhere - Pyramid Mirrors (2011) AND Infrared Moses (2012)

03/29/12:

Anywhere - Pyramid Mirrors (2011)

1. Pyramid Mirrors
2. Dead Golden West

Anywhere - Infrared Moses (2012)

 

1. Infrared Moses
2. Anywhere

     First of all, I have to give oksentaminen credit for discovering this strange side project. It includes Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta on drums and sometimes vocals, Christian Eric Beaulieu of Triclops! on guitar, Mike Watt of Minutemen on bass and Rachel Fannan formerly of the band Sleepy Sun on vocals. They have a full length coming out in the near future but these are 2 recently released 7 inch singles that they started off with. Basically, Beaulieu and Bixler-Zavala formed the group after meeting at a mutual friends art show. They later recruited Watt and Fannan to round out the group. Their sound comes from Eastern Ragas. It's predominantly acoustic guitar with minimal electric guitars and electronics. There is a lot of percussion and its all complimented by Mike Watt's speedy bass playing.
     These tracks were interesting. of the 4 here. 2 were instrumental, one was sang by Fannan and one was sang by Cedric. Of course the track Cedric sings on is my favorite. I didn't really like Fannan's singing voice but at least shes sharing duties with Cedric and half of these songs were instrumental anyways. It's an interesting group with a fairly unique sound. They're describing it as "eastern acoustic punk" and I'd say that works. I don't really know how I feel about it. I didn't hate it, I didn't love it. I guess I got a little bored at times. I'm interested to see what they do on the full length but I don't know if this is really my cup of tea. Still worth checking out if you're a fan of any of the people involved. (089)