Sissy Spacek - California Ax

Smoke My Blood

#166 - #169) Sissy Spacek - California Ax (2008)

Disc 1 - Tinsel Dripping Ink

 1. Bootleg
 2. Spider Mama
 3. Casual Cassette
 4. Lunar Eclipse Was Boring
 5. Return to From
 6. Sepsis (Version)
 7. Suction Cup
 8. Pollex
 9. Tyburn
 10. East East STL
 11. Fortnight
 12. Shovel Up On Us
 13. Secretary
 14. Smoke My Blood
 15. Polled
 16. Index
 17. Gon
 18. Purple Trouble
 19. Acoustic Sepsis
 20. Look At My Hand
 21. TV Bra
 22. Test For Color D
 23. Senso Destructo Hat
 24. Gutter Bird
 25. Pulse Pounding Torment
 26. Live at The Smell

Disc 2 - Police

 1. SOJBX
 2. Grandmere
 3. Cake Solo
 4. Ottake
 5. Magma Earings Pt. 1
 6. Eaudoxia
 7. Rapid Fire
 8. What Else Can Be New
 9. Dneiper
 10. New Pillowcase
 11. Magma Earings Pt. 2

Disc 3 - Abreq Ad Habra

 1. Psychotechnics
 2. Bongo

Disc 4 - 13-Tet Los Angeles

 1. First Set
 2. Second Set

California Ax is a 4 disc set that contains mostly new tracks, a couple old tracks and a few live sets.

Tinsel Dripping Ink is a lot like the Gore Jet comp in that the tracks are all over the place genre-wise. grind, noise, experimental, whatever, it's all here. most of the tracks are new but a couple are pulled from live sessions, one all the way back from 1998, and Bootleg says it was recorded in 2001. the live tracks are:
10. East East STL from St. Louis in 2002
23. Senso Destructo Hat from St. Louis in 1998
24. Gutter Bird from St. Charles, MO in 2000
and 26. Live at The Smell from LA in 2007

all the other tracks are newly recorded. this shit is intense.


Police features all new studio material. it's more on the electroacoustic improv/concrete side of things. this type of music has never really been my thing. it just sounds like people fucking around with things and recording it. at least that's been my experience with the genre. it's not all bad, there are occasionally times when everything comes together to form something rad and that's the case with this disc, a few cool tracks but overall it didn't really do it for me.


according to a (very) brief internet search "Abreq Ad Habra" is Hebrew and means something like "hurl your lightning bolt even unto death". it's a fitting title. the 2 tracks on this album are live sets. "Psychotechnics" is was recorded on KXLU 88.9 in LA in 2007. it's 40 minutes of face ripping audio terror. any radio station that lets someone do this on air is ok in my book. this is seriously brutal stuff.
"Bongo" was recorded at Radio Cherokee in St. Louis in 2002. it's another 20 minutes of destruction. really rad stuff, this was a great disc.


13-Tet Los Angeles features 2 live sets recorded at the Smell in 2007. the big difference between these and other live cuts is the fact that for these performances the band featured 13 people. the cd booklet also states that these performances are based on a score written by Wiese. most of Spacek's sonic palette was represented. there are a lot of cool things going on here. while not as intense as discs 1 and 3 it's still a rad album. it would've been cool to see this live.