Roulette

I was recently privileged with the opportunity to ride with a wonderful companion up to Buffalo. To catch Sissy Spacek and Wolf Eyes on a very rare jaunt through the East Coast. Pure Disgust also played, but I only caught the very last two songs of their set. Seemed like it would have been pretty fun to be there for them too. Regardless, the band I was most excited to was Sissy, who slammed through nine minutes worth of tracks that had me smiling the who time. Incredibly tight, and drenched in chaotic, shrapnel-toned bass noise. It was well worth the trip up. I also managed to scrounge up enough coin to get a few new, and not so new SS records. This one here being brand-spanking, and carried on a very interesting idea. "Roulette" is a new 7"  EP/vinyl experiment brought to us by Claimed Responsibility Records. Black vinyl copies are limited to 100 (as are the white vinyl copies).

I had a keen eye on this EP in particular when I learned about the details of the A-side. Four new tracks, each one contained on a separately cut groove from the other three. That means that each track also gets it's own starting point at the beginning of the record. So it's literally a roulette to which track you're going to get. I've heard of this idea being done in the past, but I can't for the life of me remember what record it was. Sounds like an incredible process to make, and I imagine it could be infuriating for some of you to try and hear all the tracks and keep landing the same ones. Amazingly, I somehow managed to hear each different track within the first 5-6 drops of the needle. It's a cool idea, and definitely fun, but each track is only a spare few seconds long. Riding the same noisecore influenced, blasting bass wall noise they've been doing as a duo. Hopefully some MP3's of this pop up sometime soon.

The B-side track, "Flayed", is a cut-up collage piece recorded sometime in 2011. I've honestly only scratched the surface of Sissy's collage years, but I definitely am a fan of that side of them as well. This track is filled with reverse noise loops, bits of drum tampers, industrial steam sounds, what I think is human moaning. And that's just scratching the surface of the huge amount of dense layering and manipulation that's going on here. It all morphs organically through each sample and field recording, sometimes landing into brief parts of more continues loops and gradual builds. Probably the side I'll be going back to more often honestly.

We got a nice, sturdy, glued matte sleeve to hold the record. There's no real insert included, though mine did some with a little show flier from somewhere they played.

I tried to get a good picture to show what the grooves are doing.

All around I thought this EP was a success. It had a clever concept, a solid, however brief delivery, and showed the dynamics this band can work with. Good stuff. You can pick the record up HERE.

   ~VII