GlitchSlapTko

FLOSSIN/LEAD SINGER
Ache Records (015) & Yacca (jp) (YAIP-6006)

The Best Coast Music Triumvirate of Christopher Willits, Zach Hill and Miguel Depedro, are working collectively under the anti-rubric Flossin. This trigger-happy trio has commited a kind of beautifully fragmented musical incesticide on "Lead Singer", their debut album. Recorded in December 2003 in that cesspool of musical intrigue known as the Bay Area, theirs is an emulsive music, with the simultaneity of laptop, drums, guitar in an improvisational context being the defining elements. Naturally it goes without saying that all of the typical pros and cons of BOTH elements are also nascent: Yes, there IS a cornucopia of 'looping melodies' (as is stated on the group's webpage), yet the rich loopiness ad absurdum is at times rather difficult to palate; indeed the drums DO 'shredd' (and with a welcome ferocity at that), however they also ubershred periodically, and the resulting percussive puree promises to ooze out of the listener's ear ad nauseam; and of course, a quasi-therapeutic confluence of 'washes of texture' ARE there as well, but as their high-tide is somewhat distended, the ad infinitum deluge threatens to drown out the rest of the musical goings-on. In brief, this album sometimes shines and sometimes sucks, but hey...isn't that what a freshman release is all about, anyway? Those tremulous feelings of excitement, that huge, uncontrollable swell, and then cuming all over the fucking studio! (Ahem.) Incidentally, the 'experimental micing techniques' of Andrew Skikne are responsible for the distressed rawness of the album. As to what exactly they are/were, this writer cannot even begin to venture a guess, but nevertheless maintains the hope that in the future, the trio will not shy away from experimenting with (gasp!) high-fidelity. Boys, be ambitious!

- Robert Duckworth (typing this at Planet 3rd, Shibuya)