NEPTUNE @ Soundlab
Thursday, August 17, 9pm, $6 NEPTUNE w/ Temporary Dream and Jack Topht w/ The Vegetables.
"I forgot to ask Neptune what going through customs is like for them. One of their guitars, each of which Jason Sanford wrenches into shape from scrap metal, looks like it could lop someone’s head off, if swung correctly. Another one looks (and sounds) haunted. Neither are ideal choices for carry-on. Their drum set is an assembly of abused cymbals, busted tire rims, rusty sawblades and fucked-up skeletal scraps. Then there are the boxes—pragmatically slapdash electrophonic doodads, each one intricately doctored together by Mark Pearson and studded with switches and knobs. The SWAT team would have to be pretty hip to sit through explanations for this s$%*. [...]
Their newest release, a currently untitled 10-song full-length, is littered with all kinds of mangled electronic debris. A damaged, prolonged beep leads “The Penetrating Gaze” from a stuttering groove that would make Brainiac way jealous into nasty booby traps of collapsing guitars and violent drums. The gnarled melodic character of “Fourteen Pleasures” sounds like a nightmarish game show you’d be terrified to win, while “Donkeyskin” is a vast, scratched soundscape of hand-wringing oscillators and stunted feedback. The record also features three wholly improvised tracks, which, while noticeably loose, sport the same complexities of their more planned and plotted counterparts. When Neptune starts a song, it’s more like they launch it—and when they end one, it’s more like they successfully take it down, as with a threatening aircraft or a wild beast."--the Weekly Dig
Temporary Dream is "Loud music you can sleep to. " You might like their music if you like… Brian Eno, Yo la Tengo, Glenn Branca, Spacemen 3, No Wave, My Bloody Valentine, Neu!, Trans Am, Lo-Fi, The Ventures, Minimalism, Drones, Booker T. and the MGs, noise, staring into space, emptiness, sleeping in. In addition to that list, which they provided to Artvoice, their myspace page lists their Influences as: "Cicadas (the insect) ... Stan Brakhage ... James Brown, British Invasion, transience, no-wave, Tony Conrad, blindness." http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=51785109
Jack Topht: "Sonic dissonance, beats and words, schizophrenia, and old-fashioned silliness"