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The Trust Riots. Dead Heaven / Ampland 3"CDR
this limited edition 3"CDR was reissued on LP by Lathelight Ltd in 2006
kill yr guitars !
limited copies by mailorder and available at the following shows; The Trust Riots are Mike Karadimos and Chris Jeely. Their sound revolves around the use of live guitars, laptop and multiple tape players creating an atmosphere that is equal parts drone, noise and found sound.
01. Dead Heaven (mp3 previews 1, 2, 3) |: cover by Cataract Press |
| Reviews |
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Another swell mix of guitar and electronics is available on The Trust
Riots' new one, Dead Heaven (Scarcelight 3" CD). This is a live
document of this DC based duo making some very fine racket on electric
guitar, while tape machines and laptops lick at the edges of the
decay, then burst into wads of sustained feedback hum. Nice!
Material on Chris Jeely's Scarcelight label is never less than interesting and always worth a listen.
The 3-inch disc by The Trust Riots' Chris Jeely and Mike Karadimos features nineteen minutes of noise,
drones, and scrapes constructed from guitars, laptop and multiple tape players. Though Jeely and Karadimos
share a mutual love for guitar feedback and affection for the spirit of early punk rock, the two tracks here
(really one, as the first flows seamlessly into the second) more broil and simmer than explode. Strangulated
guitars writhe and twitch against a backdrop of distorted murmur and spindly scrapings in “Dead Heaven” while
“Ampland” rides a wave of droning hum for seven minutes. The Trust Riots' approach to guitar remains as
unconventional and explorative as it is on Jeely's Accelera Deck recordings.
Scarcelight is one of the few labels that successfully release CDs
as-well as CDRs, but for the latter they surely keep the more
experimental works, such as The Trust Riots. Quite unclear as to who
or what, but they have a bunch of guitars, and some effect boxes but
sadly not much money to make some proper recording, as this is all
quite hissy and lo-fi in quality. The intentions are alright, and The
Trust Riots could be from New Zealand (with the sounds like Sandoz
Lab Technicians and K-Group), so the lo-fi quality is surely
something they carry with proudness.
dead heaven' is a heap of guitar / bass noise weirdly scraping around your neck, writhing and wriggling from interferences to
distortion effect boxes. 'ampland' is the same but more low, subtle and laidback and actually dissolving itself into first
almost silence and then a drizzle of rain. From this description alone you already know if this is a release for you or not,
right? Me, I am just sorry I never heard their first 3'CD-release. Whoever put up the rule that short releases get short
reviews only?
Even if free improvised bass/guitar-noise is all the rage among certain types ' or so the people running my favourite recordstore
tell me ' I am afraid this little gem will remain unearthed (no pun intended). One of the things I like most about noise of any
kind is the way how it is constantly changing shapes because half of what you hear is construed inside your head and the other
half is from somewhere out there, but you may never know which is which and what is what. Except for that the basic sounds
is noise. At the moment there is a certain amassing of noise that comes from guitars or other amplified instruments. Before
it was electronic equipment using chips like laptops. Before that it was mainly just plain distortion types of electronic
equipment on a much more basic level. There is a point on this CD where The Trust Riots are about to answer the question
of what will be next. I am referring to that minutelong simmering of low-level bass-drone that comes from leaving your
amplifier on while doing (almost) nothing. So the answer might be a newfound focus on the surroundings and the acoustics
of the room you are in right now. (If in need for a reference to this please check out 'thumb' 'CD on grob by Oren Ambarchi, Keith Rowe together with Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M and one more fellow whose name I forgot). But this moment is resolved in some frizzling noise that is more like raining outside.
The trust riots is Mike Karadimos and Chris Jeely (founder of Scarcelight, Accelera Deck) who have worked together last
on Jeely's surprising and surprisingly good lo-fi-pop excursion Skulllike, whereas these pieces on here seem more like them
letting it go loose and unrestricted in the rehearsal room, using their guitars, laptop and tapes while the recording machine
is still running. So it is more in the vein of what you might expect from Scarcelight. I have praised the fine sense for noise
that Jeely possesses at another, probably less fitting place (check here) so this free and straight to the tape approach is a
cool variation to that. As a contrasting picture to the restricted and formulaic approach of Skulllike, these two longish pieces
on one wee disc is more than a relieving or interesting gesture. It is a pleasure to behold. Since these two discs arrived here
in one package I am suggesting to give them away only as a double-pack.
Maybe I am wrong (I realize I tend to say that a lot in the last weeks) and these two pieces are carefully constructed and
structured pieces of noise turning into drone turning into field recordings turning into something completely else and then
turning around and going back where it came from with the care to take some sidepaths and excursions on the way, but it sure
doesn't sound like it. Both tracks are freely running and loose in more than one way. There is a lot of guitar scraping and
feedbacks, of amp-drone and mutilated screeching, and some nice explosions of noise as well. What is more important is that
throughout all the sombre and serious neckbending control of the noise emitted from their instruments, Karadimos and Jeely
nevertheless seem to have had a lot of fun doing these. |