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Mirror/Dash, "I Can't Be Bought"
This is the sound of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore getting it on under their Mirror/Dash duo. Recorded in May of 2005 at the Le Weekend festival this improv set couldn't be mistaken for the work of anyone else. There is no mistaking the signature sounds of these players, Gordon's vocal remaining the ultimate love-it-or-hate-it sound in alternative circles.
Her unmistakable vocal coos whispers and wanders across I Can’t Be Bought, sieving its way through feedback and shortwave transmissions. Even though it is clear who is performing here, there is still tension and restlessness in this performance. They may have the same tools as one of their quartet shows, but this is no mere Sonic Youth tea-break jam. Most importantly for a set of improvisational guitar music though is the fact that they never relax into plain old noise or get pluckily cerebral.
The shaky tension they create is held tight till the very end of the show, Gordon's coda threat of "Shake!" holding a ragged blade to the feedback's throat. Product of a backstage domestic or just broad open minds, the duo drag a little bit of harrowed muscle onto the stage. Slow slinking notes wind around Gordon's moans and disjointed singing, the guitar skirting the edges of possible rock riff avenues. There's a recurring downwards strum that ties the piece into reality, there's no chance that players this experienced could produce a comeless masturbatory fool around. Passages of chime play out back and forth before the duo pool their resources into great floating masses of sugared quake. Angular shrieks split single notes into a palette of hawked up sounds, that delicately bent crystal glean that they do so well; no one makes the sound of wrestling metal like Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon.
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