(Dead Angel no.47) More strange sounds courtesy of Public Eyesore. Hair and Nails are actually Walenska and Dino, a duo who have a fondness for static, drones, and peculiar sounds. Experimental? Definitely. Exotic-sounding? You bet. They also favor brevity -- there are 36 tracks on this disc, each averaging less than two minutes -- so their odd sounds don't wear out their welcome too quickly. There are some harsh moments to be found here, but mainly they revel in peculiar, reverbed sounds and almost-random plinking of various instruments as drones swirl in the background. It's all a bit chaotic for my taste (I prefer my weird sounds to be at least somewhat rhythmic), but the sounds are definitely interesting and varied. I like their fondness for amp hum and background drone. Their sound is often a bit busier and more cluttered than I'd prefer, but that's a matter of personal taste, I suspect. They certainly make use of variation over the length of the disc. Worth checking out if you are hep to the whole sound-collage thing.... -RKF
(Bananafish no.16) Not to be confused with the vaudevillian trope "Professor, a little traveling music, if you please," Hair and Nails pack their Hair and Nails III CDR (Public Eyesore) with the intention of following the sun. Futuristic homesteaders in an alien outback, Walenska and Dino deliver thirty-six short electronics-samples duets, perfect haiku éléctroniques, semi-fermented and compressed much like a fine oolong or adolescent foot-binding. - S. Glass
(Neo-Barbaric no.16) 36 short spacey tracks whizzing about like noise nuggets in a meteor belt. It sounds like the combined efforts of a toy synthesizer, a xylophone, a random noise sampler, a trash can lid, a video arcade, and a hand-held tape recorder. Everything seems distant and disconnected, like you are a chance observer rather than intended listener. It's like delving into subconscious secrets, prying into semi-intelegent alien business and observing the irrational nature of the laws of the universe. It's very abstract, but none too lofty. I'd say that any chance meeting of unorganized tidbits and samples, and exotic noise generators in the hands of an enterprising artist would pull off a similar effect. Nothing staggering, but plenty to keep the wheels turning. - CC
(Ampersand Etcetera 2002_10) Walenska and Dino give us 73 minutes on this album – but as there are 36 tracks, it means that they are brief excursions that give a suggestion of developments. The structure suggests that H&N like playing around in the studio, creating a little something and moving on. The result is a collection of constantly moving collages. The sounds are crackles, pops, arcade games (lots), quiet rumbles, whooshing, tapping, plings, warm analogue tones, interference, dysfunctional drum machines, gamelan, blurts, voice loops (chopped or manipulated), scrabbling, messed tracks and samples (guitar sax flute – these could actually be played, but unlikely), noises, organs, blowy tones, field recordings (nature supermarket kitchen cat) singing, pinging, scrapes, computer blipps, lovely shimmers, miked sounds (scraped scratched banged) in various combinations of some of them – not all on one track! You get organ with computer games, chopped up voice loops, shimmers and computer blipps, some spooky parts, some noise, mainly playful. There are short noisey attacks, longer more worked and varied explorations, investigated ideas. Sometimes it sounds like a dogs dinner, and to my mind there is too much to digest, but it is diverting in small courses. And, to continue the food metaphor, H&N suggest by the many entrees on this menu that they could cook up a satisfying full dinner. - Jeremy Keens
