Nurse With Wound / Aranos "Santoor Lena Bicycle" United Dairies UD 053 CD 2000 (62:47)
Sparking
Cloud (Outing) (2:37)
Marbles
(5:53)
Gongs
& Wood (2:42)
Mary
Jane (6:28)
Bathing
in Air (1:27)
Two
From Half's Be Cracked (8:00)
Sunset
Belly Mother (4:13)
Generally
Regarded as Safe (5:42)
Peak
of Purified Dream (8:53)
Dusty
Bella (6:40)
Knife
Knows His Doing (10:12)
Petr Vastl (Aranos) and Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound) have collaborated a few times, musically and visually, on each others albums the past 13 years. "Santoor Lena Bicycle" is their most full fledged collaboration to date as both the music and artwork are, quite literally, the product of both the artists. For this project the duo simultaneously painted eighteen 8' by 4' paintings which were then exhibited for one day in Ireland and the next day cut into one thousand 5 and 1/2" square wooden panels to make the covers for the 'gallery edition' (limited to 500 copies). Thus, you get unique pieces of the actual artwork. The paintings are of the surrealist nature that Stapleton (aka Babs Santini) is well known for and all are shown intact in a small fold out poster with titles that correspond to the CD tracks. The tangible only adds to the less tangible qualities ... the array of mostly minimal sounds and arrangements that comprise the audio: machine noises interspersed with violin, sparse piano bits, rolling marbles, splashing water, hissing gasses, metallic gongs, clanking wood, stand-up bass, more violin, plucked guitar, some bizarre vocals (on "Mary Jane"), creaking, children's voices, rain stick, even more violin and bizarre vocals ("Dusty Bella"), animals (?) and other found sound oddities. "Two From Half's Be Cracked" is particularly ominous with several sustained minutes of deeply resonant drone and slight stringed bowing. Ditto for the better part of "Peak of Purified Dream" only more subconscious. "Sunset Belly Mother" definitely stands out with a porno funk bass line and clean electric guitar doodling. The latter half of "Knife Knows His Doing", after a few minutes of silence, is an absolutely insane and amusing endurance test of percussion collage and high pitched vocal wailing then a final 'charge!' horn brings it all to a sudden end. Altogether a nice balance and variety of 'musical' and not so musical moments. The cost? About $45. It was worth it. Now, I just wish I could get my hands on an entire painting ...
Where did I get this cd? - mail order via Riouxs Records.