Justin Rhody and Matthew Himes - "Romantic Love" (Lighten Up) CS

School has started up again (I teach at a boarding school) and that has meant that I have been flat out for the last two weeks. Reviews will be slowing down now for a while, but I am going to try to keep it going. I would like to be able do a couple a month. I would also like to really focus on things that are being produced locally - in the North East region - as much as possible. So that is where that is at. Now...


This is a tape from the good people at Lighten Up Sounds in Lake City, Minnesota. It was recorded, however, this past winter in Belfast, Maine - so I am going for it in the region.
Pretty desolate offerings here. Sounds like a deuzy of a day down Maine. Nothing to do, no where to go. The feeling of being inside your head for too long. Elements, thoughts, ideas float away without notice - never to return again. Others linger forever, drilling themselves a home between neurons. Dark zones for sure. I think about how some finger picking would be nice. So zoned that I think I hear it. Out of no where. Fingerpicking - there it is; buried alive. But it is actually in there. At points the sludge is so thick that it vanishes. Nothing left, then... straight rocky winter wave waylay. Picturegrotesqueness.

Hints of the Jazzfinger mode here: soothing harshness and open-ended tone-load. Also with a dose of Sick Llama stagnation. These two dudes (Rhody and Himes) are doing something right. God knows what it is.

Justice is served out back with ghost-crew wails; the church bell is being methodically rung and destroyed simultaneously. Feedback and intonation slathered on the walls of an ever expanding, empty room. And strangely, there is still some air in here - still some room to move around even. Hesitation and dwelling in difficult spirits persists. Textures lay naked despite the ongoing dim-hum pulse persuasion. Not drugged, but Debbie downer for sure. These jams (sounds like 2 pieces on side A, one on B) are really negative; and almost more so because of their lack of aggressiveness. Wallow city 2009. The sky is falling, the sky is falling, in Belslow. No seriously. Get down there.

After 24 minutes, the tape ends utterly unresolved - as quandarified as it begins.

Keep your eye out for several good-looking forthcoming releases on Lighten Up, including: THE SAVAGE YOUNG TATERBUG 10", CAETHUA/SHEP and ME split LP, and DAVE CINTRON CS