√++

Album Reviews from BSR

To Live & Shave in L.A. - Noon and Eternity (Menlo Park Recordings)

by Jason on June 8th, 2007

release date: halloween ‘06
review date: 05/07

After splitting into several rival variations of tte same band (including To Live & Shave in L.A 2, To Live & Shave in L.A 3), the newest lineup of this experimental collective reunites the core of Tom Smith, Rat “Frank Falestra” Bastard, and Ben Wolcott. Factor in special guests Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Don Fleming, Mark Morgan (of Sightings), some other important sounding people, and Andrew W.K. (!!). The result is epic, loosely controlled chaos with tape loops, electronics, regular insruments (guitar, bass, drums) doing irregular things, and “I AM WEIRD” written all over everything. You’d never guess that the vocals are in plain English. Long tracks so you may want to play only an excerpt, and I divided the first track into segments for your convenience. Go ahead, play this and scare the normals. RIYL Landed, Talk Talk’s “Laughing Stock,” Bastard Noise-style doom ambience
-Jason

1. This Home and Fear 24:24 V+(+)

[ambience in between song-segments
ambient beats
2:55 vocals, builds V+
11:45-14:45 V++
16:00-21:00 V++ tension building drum circle
slow ambient outro]

2. Early 1880s 19:22 V++
–>pretty ambience turns into dark evil sounds ~3:00, progressively more evil as vocals enter ~8:15

3. Percent Obstruct Street 0

0 “fuck” [V++] (unintelligible)

4. Mothers over Silverpoint 9:31 V+(+)
builds

Leave a reply