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"Del-War Showdown"
Described by the label itself a “live goof nonsense”, this is a mixture of travelogue, unintentional stand-up and sound check banter. But where last year’s Live at East Banfields Wolf Eyes release was spoken word comedy, this mixes up that formula with musical interludes.
These pieces aren’t mini-disc leftover jams either, they are prime cuts from (I believe) Wolf Eyes, John Olson and Graveyards; it’s these tracks that makes this CD-R worth trawling the net for. Recorded in and around, and on the way into Delaware, the non-musical parts aren’t exactly essential, but stir a few laughs past a handful of listens. The Cockerel-in-studio shenanigans of “Four” or “Six”s odd hybrid of melancholy piano piece and The Police are obviously the exceptions to this rule.
The six minute “Two” takes shredded power electronics to the point where you can hear holes being bored into the floor of the venue. Spilling spools of corrupted magnetic tape from their battered suitcases, riffs are spat out and brutally wronged in front of the audience.
At 20 minutes long the closer casts a low long shadowy silhouette over Del-War Showdown’s comedy moments. This hollow shelled monster of a track flickers down the slow burning fuse, a rotating rasp whining and grinding taking hold of the low end. This piece shifts into something more in line with the UK underground, like a freshly dug-up psych side, its long drawn melodies floating away lazily. The whole shebang ends in an audience screaming themselves ill; Delaware sounds like a pretty wild place.
