exterminating angelIn the days of pedal worship and amplification, it's always interesting to see artists manipulate their traditional instruments through a rack of distortions and delays. Alec K Redfearn is doing what Antonie Chessex is doing to his saxophone - turning it into a fuzzy bleeding electric guitar. Unlike the take of musicians like Pauline Oliveros, who took advantage of the drone sound of the accordion, Redfearn brings in this project distorted, rolling melodies. Working since the mid 90's as part of the urban-improv-folk collective The Eyesores, writing scores for soundtracks and theater, Redfearn grew up to be an urban poet/singer/songwriter, making music that has the aroma of a full ashtray and the breath of whisky. A bit like Tom Waits' Closing Time front cover, only that Waits image projects tiredness and understanding of the end, while Redfearn will have much more angry face, like the work is not done yet. In this release he joins The Seizures, urban-folk unit, who uses percussion and string instruments, taking the acoustic instrumantation to it's dark sides, like Gira's Angels of Light, only more frantic. Together the result is a stroytelling jorney of lost souls which sounds like a take on Nick Cave blues by a 16 Horsepower -Americana feel. The liner notes on the inside cover of this release proudly says "there are no guitars on this record". This kind of old-school liner notes (same as "this record mixed to be played in maximum volume" and the likes of that) always create a pretentious feeling. In this case, there's no expermintation or any theory behind it. Redfearn simply express himself the best through fucked-up people stories and his distorted accordion, and the Seizures are a good ryhtm section to help him push his unsung sewage poetry. -- omer schwartz
:: Alec K Redfearn & The Seizures/Exterminating Angel -- Corleone Records
