Gong Splat

Madman John Dwyer (Oh Sees, Osees, OCS, Coachwhips, Damaged Bug, etc)'s new project involves several notable collaborators and a focus on improvisation, but they don't have a snappy name for the group this time around, huh. Anyway, if you know Dwyer, you know what you're in for; if you don't, expect deep krauty jams and spacey sounds; everything here is instrumental, so no FCCs.

Everything's good, but the longer tracks have more room to breathe

1. (3:47) ***** Insistent kraut drumming, noodly parts (sparse organ way up in the cloud of sound), monkey screech synths; samey but a good little groove
2. (4:53) *****
Scuba-documentary/spy movie bass-y sounds with radar beeping; drums become more frantic halfway thru; paranoia increases but still with laid-back chill vibes; nice echoey annihilation to end
3. (7:14) ***** Funky kraut mellow groove, squonky fuzzy noodling; extra extra spacey mood, paranoid spacewalk; the last minute sees the groove wash away, leaving a tiny little sparkly organ
4. (4:25) ** Slower, moody; religious bongo ceremony
5. (8:58) ****** Plinky lounge organ to start, all over background of far-away space atmosphere; lighter and more buoyant‒it's like a space-western sitcom soundtrack. More easy-listening than kraut-y, but nothing is quite like this; energy winds down 2-3rds thru, but rebuilds energy with renewed krautiness
6. (2:48) **** Feel-good crunchy calculator sounds and sax-y sounds in a spacestorm gentle breeze; ends with just wind sounds for 15 seconds or so
7. (2:20) *** Serious and doomy drums, simple and repetitive questioning loop; splits and splats everywhere around, suddenly ends
8. (1:32) ** ANTIC! Everybody's scrambling
9. (3:36) **** Track is named after one of the planet in Dune; very spare and severe and drumless; lot of growly lowness, but also sparkly synths; fades away

-Hervey Okkles