The Echoing Shell

Longtime friends Dean Spunt and John Wiese have both forged their own paths with chaotic sounds, Spunt as one half of L.A. punk duo No Age and Wiese as one of the more prominent players in the American noise scene. Wiese toured with No Age multiple times, sometimes joining them on-stage to add caustic electronics to their stripped-down drums-and-guitar setup. The Echoing Shell is a more official meeting of the minds between Spunt and Wiese, an EP consisting of two lengthy pieces of abstract and heavily edited sounds, some derived from the organic rattle of Spunts drum kit being processed into oblivion, and others beaming in from unknown depths. Anyone familiar with Wieses output under the Sissy Spacek moniker will recognize a similar confluence of organic punk/hardcore elements and harsh noise deconstruction. While Sissy Spacek tends more towards grindcore brutality, here Spunts free-form drumming gets broken down and reassembled into spacious but granulated bits. The playing is tentative and lurching, but Wieses interspersed electronic squelches, eroded tapes, and blasts of internal feedback instill tension even in the softer, more drawn-out moments. The Echoing Shell is broken into two pieces that each run just over 14 minutes: "Fruit from Color Vapor" and "Black Fruit." Within each of these lengthy pieces, however, are dozens of micro-movements, shifting frantically before narratives or patterns can be established. The entire album is in a state of perpetual implosion, with little more than a few seconds passing before another disruption wipes the slate clean. In some ways, The Echoing Shell feels like a scorched-earth update of the percussion-only albums free jazz drummers like Andrew Cyrille, Milford Graves, or Sunny Murray issued in the 1970s, with electronics subbed in for the racket those albums would achieve by simply adding more drums. The raw, scraping noise and dismantled recordings provide a counterpoint to the rhythmless drumming, and both Spunt and Wiese play off each other to create a compelling barrage that evolves as it deteriorates. ~ Fred Thomas