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Mouthus / Cousins of Reggae, "Split"
Splitting this vinyl, and the handmade silk-screened covers, between a pair of duos from Canada and Brooklyn shows noise, guitars and drums acts don’t have to follow the routes of their bigger peers. Although Mouthus’ heavily textured freakout is worlds apart from Cousins of Reggae’s broken behemoth, there is a common battleground.
Cousins of Reggae is a massive misnomer. On this spilt they seem to prefer distorted violence to the delusions of herb, but should they ever turn their sights on Babylon, it’ll end messily for The Man. Spewing splint-legged detuned guitar mess into five chunks of ‘no future’ slaughter, this duo make primitive sludgy pummelling seem driven by aggression.
Like light starved subterranean straight edgers they jostle and batter five versions of "History and Prehistory of Hudson’s Bay." With caveman flint whittling torpedoes of feedback spurting from their doomy ham-fisted string punching, this is held down and drowned rock music. This sound of this primitive down-the-well mix of guitars, drums and noise sounds like its coming from behind the screen around the bed at the end of the ward. There’s no massive variety between these most of these songs, maybe a little bit more muscled feedback manipulation here or some distant vocals there. "Part Three" adds some elusive chimes to the staggering surges, and this portions length makes it the most satisfying of the Cousins side.
The first Mouthus cut, "Better than Facemask," layers beat upon beat with sub rhythms continuously deposing the chance of melody with a shot to the back of the head. This propulsive layering of drum is normally the preserve of Brazilian funk or the crusty dreads on a festival percussion jihad, yet Mouthus make it the sound of mechanical insects mating endlessly. Part of their appeal is the fact that the sounds thunder out from different layers of murk, pulling an addictive shadowy curtain over the turmoil like a layer of dirt. The mix seems to bring out certain pieces into the shuddering daylight only to be superseded by another beaten barrel looping rumble. Perversely with "New Drugz" the duo ditch the beats, replacing them with rushing static. Everything else that makes up Mouthus is brought a little closer to the front: the dusty stylus metal buzz, low bass tuning and Muslim / pagan chants. The band unquestionably has their rhythm thing down to a T, and "New Drugz" suffers a little from the lack of steady movement that this could bring. Its lack of flight might be paving the way for the band’s entry into blacker psychedelia, but I prefer my Mouthus to be eight limbed and on the move.
samples:
- Cousins of Reggae "History and Prehistory of Hudson’s Bay in Five Parts - Part One
- Mouthus "New Drugz"
- Mouthus "Better than Facemask'"
 
