entropic advance - Mad Cow B.B.Q. Reviews

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=200 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <BR> <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#99ccff" FACE="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><B>Mad Cow B.B.Q. (Reviews)</B></FONT><P> <B>*</B><a href="http://www.thestranger.com/2004-09-16/music5.html" target="_top">The Stranger, Vol 14, No.1, Sept 22, 2004</a><BR> <FONT SIZE="1" face="arial,helvetical" COLOR="#FFFFFF">-<FONT face="arial,helvetical" COLOR="#99ccff"><I>Mad Cow B.B.Q. ; Monkey with a Gun</I> (Symbolic Insight)</font></font><BR> <FONT SIZE="2" face="arial,helvetical" COLOR="#DDDDDD">Wesley Davis (bios+a+ic) and Casey Jones (Noise Poet Nobody) create low-lit, amorphous soundscapes that make you feel as if you've ingested all the drugs sampled in Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception. Davis' processed trumpet and Jones' customized slide guitar form sonic mirages over rhythms that twitch and skitter with devious intent. These albums inspire feelings of both transcendence and dread. Y'all ready to party? DAVE SEGAL, The Stranger</FONT><P> <B>*</B>entropic advance <I>(Mad Cow BBQ, cd, symbolic insight, 2004)</I><BR> <FONT SIZE="2" face="arial,helvetical" COLOR="#DDDDDD">For their eigth release entropic advance has enlisted the aid of Carl Farrow (inBoil, *Polar) and Otis Fodder (The Bran Flakes). Aside from their individual instruments (trumpet, slide guitar, synthesizer, and theremin) all four musicians fire off countless oblique samples and effects, creating a dark and engaging form of electronic experimentalism. Fans of entropic's live show will not be disappointed, it picks up where <I>Water for Your Eyes</I> and <I>Live at Seattle Art Museum</I> left off, and sports a pretty funny packaging design as well! <BR> The intro track mustard creeps in with eerie noises and theremin swells that morph into a slow break beat, setting the pace for the disc, as a voice says, "listen as the truth is turned into mythology, it penetrates deeply".Ketchup is a squishy soundscape of analog drones, until glitchy tribal beats slowly pour out, sounding like a deconstructed Aphex Twin track crossed with Lustmord on mushrooms with nice trumpet sounds and a horn sample which brings you back into reality briefly.The frenzy of relish is one of those pieces of music that requires multiple listens, as layers of pickled noises find a pattern about four minutes into the song. Twisted slide guitar and trumpet lead in sesame seed buns, where analog pops and hisses come together as a very catchy mid-tempo groove. Synthesizers float in around the trumpet, making it a great club track, and my personal favorite on the disc.A robotic voice issues cryptic commands throughout potato salad and the pacing gives one the sense of speeding through a tunnel, pursued by cyborgs from the future. Another beat to get your head bobbing is in deviled eggs. More repetitive then some of the other beats, it is also very glitchy and dark, sounds are set back a bit, making this another great club track. Hot dogs is similar to relish, perhaps a bit more spacious, but, still a very layered and complex mosaic of grinding noises. Grade A ground round is probably the most ambient song, though mangled data freakouts pepper the surface, the meat of this track is an evolving harmonic space. Mad Cow BBQ skirts the line between electro-glitch and ambient noise, yet manages to remain cohesive and very musical. While many will buy this CD for its wild packaging concept, they will keep listening for the depth and complexity of the sounds inside. <br> -j. mueller