(Smother) Three tracks by this Omaha based group that whirl in pandemonium and reckless abandon. “Link to the Outside World” may sound chaotic and improvisational but there’s a beauty to it, an urgent beauty that if you don’t cling onto right away it might puff away like smoke. Really pretty cello work I might add. - J-Sin
(Ampersand Etcetera) There are a host of people (7) who make up Sad Sailor, playing guitars, cello, bass, synth, trumpet and drums. Three tracks on Link to the outside world may be live, but at a minimum they are raw studio recordings: a few times you can hear whoever the leader is counting the change. The image comes from their myspace site which describes them as shoegaze/folk/americana and the track that plays is quite folky. However this album is quite far from that. Juice the room opens with a melancholic cello with some strumming and keys behind before a couple of count in-s and the group moves in: drums, guitar, tones paralleling the cello and playing along, but then building a head of steam to develop a murky wall of sound, the drums in the foreground and instruments either emerging from the density or being able to be picked out. There is a false fade, a group rebuild and then another fade. We are straight into the wall in Radiant evil. Drum and bass provide a basic rhythm, the guitars are more to the fore (there are three) and a melody can be felt in the mix (and even hints at the groups folk-roots). Ringing guitars in Down at weirdo park are then combined with another pulsing sound assault, here the trumpet is featured, and the track ends the album with a well paced fade as instruments leave, balancing the opening. The combination of components here provides a satisfying mix of a full-bore sound(water)fall with an air of musical sensibility - and at 28 minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome. - Jeremy Keens
(Aiding and Abetting) Seven people, three songs. Sounds a lot like Dirty Three, except much more improvisational and much more densely populated. The songs themselves, however, are lovely explorations. They unfold quite slowly, but eventually come together into radiant wholes. Easy to get lost--not that I minded. - Jon Worley
(Dead Angel) What we get here are three long tracks of improvised playing from a band with an unusual lineup -- three guitars, cello, bass, drums, synth, and trumpet. Unlike a lot of albums associated with eh? and its parent Public Eyesore, this is definitely not a free-jazz album, and it's not really aligned with drone all that much, either; rather, this is pure improv rock, something that would be compared to Phish or the Grateful Dead if it weren't so obviously removed from the common cliches of mainstream music. Beyond that, it's hard to describe what this music is, other than beautiful and transcendent -- the band's intention, it seems, is to create harmonically and melodically rich music without succumbing to standard notions of structure, space, and meaning. There's a psychedelic tinge to the interstellar overdrive guitar runs on "down at weirdo park," a motif vaguely reminiscent of the guitar sound of some early Pink Floyd albums, but otherwise the band occupies a sound and space of its own. While the interplay of sound occasionally builds to a frenzy, for the most part this is subdued music, more interested in the convergence of harmonious sound than tossing off sonic explosions aimed at rattling the psyche. This is what experimental rock is all about, using standard instruments in service of non-standard thinking to create new and compelling sounds. - RKF
