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Nurse With Wound/Larsen, "A Selection of Errors"
After over two years of recordings, swapping files and reworking each others' material, this collaboration between Steven Stapleton and Larsen has been long awaited. Regrettably, the end result is not uniformly great as the album has a number of pieces which do not reflect the best capabilities of either party. Yet, all is not lost as there is gold here amongst the debris. Some brilliant sounds are sandwiched between other less exhilarating pieces.
 
Featuring Eberhard Kranemann (a.k.a. Fritz Müller), "Tickety Boo" is a terrific slice of krauty, Nursey psychedelia. There are shades of Stapleton’s collaborations with Stereolab running through the piece but it also strikingly resembles some of the more upbeat material that ended up on Coil's posthumous albums, particularly "Algerian Basses" and "Princess Margaret's Man In The D'jamalfna" from The New Backwards. It is hard to hear exactly what Kranemann is contributing to the piece (though he is credited with a band’s worth of instrumentation) but his impact is significant; this is far removed from Stapleton’s recent output. The druggy, exotic beats begin to break down and melt into each other as the music takes on a new character halfway through the piece. Slide guitar and lysergic vocals reinforce the tyranny of the beat even as strange metallic percussion tries to chip away at the rhythms.
The second piece continues where "Tickety Boo" leaves off but the lights are dimmed as Nurse With Wound and Larsen begin their approach. "Easin' By" begins well, a bell-like drone slowly developing into a landscape of vibrations as lighter drones and distant chimes begin to add color and life to the music. The drone becomes thicker and foggier, a pink haze like a smog made from marshmallow vapors. Distant trumpets are barely audible, maybe someone is playing a Miles Davis record in the next apartment or maybe it is part of the act but in any case it adds to the dreamy effect.
Unfortunately, once "Easin' By" ends, the album stumbles and never fully regains its stride. "Rock, Baby, Rock" and "Bug Vaudeville" has roughly the same material being treated by Stapleton and Larsen respectively. Neither version is particularly inspiring; the presence of both on the same release seems like a redundant gesture to me. Both Stapleton and Larsen assemble their pieces along similar lines and in each case there is not a lot to write home about; an inert bass line and meandering, processed guitar melody start in the middle of nowhere and do not get far. Neither "Rock, Baby, Rock" nor "Bug Vaudeville" are bad per se and granted they are a move away from the norm for Nurse With Wound but they sound too much like some of Larsen's weaker moments to be even something novel.
In fairness to Larsen, there are a couple of their pieces (i.e. the ones where they have done the most shaping of the material) which they can be proud of. "Call Me, Tell Me" is up there with my favorite works by Larsen, recalling the finer moments of SeieS or Abeceda. Their distinctive repetition and pretty melodies snowball into an avalanche of driving noise. Marco Schiavo’s drumming provides a focal point for the music; his fluid, precise and beautifully phrased percussion acting like a frame for the other members to hang their contributions on.
Considering A Selection of Errors has been in the pipeline for so long, I have a feeling that this cake is over-baked. When it is good, it is stellar but the presence of what seems like filler material detracts from the album as a whole. Reduced to an EP this would have been awesome but, as it stands, it lacks enough focus to make it a classic.
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