This album only came out 6 years ago, but it blew me away then and blows me away now. Inspired by the HONEY RIDE ME A GOAT thread earlier, here's another one of the few bands inspired by the Magic Band and perhaps no wave... another one of those weirdo bands who decide to mix avant-progressive rock/rock in opposition with detuned high pitched no wave stuf. This is all instrumental, and it's very intricate. This band took over 3 years to write this one 7-song 31 minute album. They apparently played these songs for about 5 years and wrote another song or two, got rid of a guitarist and replaced him with a keyboardist, and I think there was a vocalist at some point.. and then the band finally called it quits, because the drummer was supposedly addicted to drugs... but whatever..
All that aside, they left this one absolutely incredible album. If you can wrap your head around two detuned clean guitars playing SUPER intricate lines that sound like, oh, EARLY SONIC YOUTH meets THE MAGIC BAND, with about 500 riffs a minute, and a drummer who is all over the place -- basically, it's kinda the sound that Skin Graft was built on (this was released on Skin Graft --
of course!), but this is my favorite album they released. It's really hard to convey the pure insanity of this music. While a lot of people lose their mind to Hella and Orthrelm and so on, this band -- in my opinion -- just wrote more compelling music.
Yada yada press:
"An incomprehensible blend of tightly wound math rock composition, but played with 'expressive' guitars, making them sound more like blood brothers to bands like U.S. Maple or Arab On Radar rather than Don Caballero. Each song packs more composition than an entire album from most (bands)... I've heard the future of music and my ears are still bleeding.
- Crackle Pop Journal
"In the band's three-year history, Yowie seems to have done everything in its reach to make things as difficult on itself as possible. It is in this constant self-challenge that one can see a sort of intellectual nobility shining through songs that often sound as if they'll spin out of control and whiz off into the ether. O'Connor's drumming is a befuddling barrage of 32nd notes, jarring stops and cymbal splashes that defies simple description, often calling to mind the rhythmic mayhem of the music of Raymond Scott, the composer of scores for countless cartoons from the 1940s. And the dueling, microtonally tuned guitars of Wonsewitz and Hagerty engage in sonic relationships that don't seem to want to exist, often creating dissonance that's oddly compelling. It's high-velocity music of intense discipline, rigid structure and focused force; Yowie's kung fu is very good. The aural ass-whupping they so effortlessly throw down energizes, excites and amazes further with every listen. It's an ululating tribute to human potential through music, a testament to the fact that we as humans have much further to go. If music is the history of the human spirit, Yowie proves that musicians could start being a little more honest with themselves by seeking out every remote nook and cranny in the mind and bathing the darkness in an unrelenting light If it's possible to explain Yowie in one sentence, Hagerty has at least come close, if not nailed it beautifully: 'The point is to free the material and the given tools from each other."
- The Riverfront Times
Addictive/brilliant/unbelievable/inspirational/masterpiece. Enjoy:
http://www.mediafire.com/?nzhndottrzw