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Vestigial Limb, "Sour Gas Kills"
Kentucky's Vestigial Limb is not likely to emerge from the endless, faceless hordes of the harsh electronics tape underground anytime soon, but Ray Shinn is intermittently really damn good at what he does. I did not expect Kentucky to be a particularly fertile bed for avant-garde electronics.
 
905 Tapes
Vestigial Limb's Ray Shinn creates extremely dense and complex noise collages using tapes, a record player, and electronics.Notably, it is surprisingly listenable stuff- more noise-damaged ambient than harsh noise.Unfortunately, he can be maddeningly inconsistent, despite showing flashes of brilliance and inspiration.
The first of the five untitled tracks on Sour Gas Kills is unquestionably my favorite: a deep and engulfing roar with subtly shifting melodic swells buried in the maelstrom.Occasionally it is punctuated by stutters or strangled feedback squawks, but the oddly soothing and wavering avalanche continues unabated for nearly nine minutes.There is a staggering amount of stuff happening, which makes for enjoyable repeat listenings, but none of it detracts from the engulfing wash of sculpted entropy.
The very brief second track is lurching and spacious and built upon a very dense blurt of looping feedback. It works quite well, but it is over far too soon.In fact, the sustained inspiration and crushing awe of the first track is never repeated again, sadly.The side ends with a somewhat off-kilter white noise blowout built around some mangled-sounding string plucking.It coheres into fairly heavy tsunami of low-end white noise, but that particular niche is already oversaturated and Shinn doesn't bring anything particularly unique to it.
Disappointingly, the second side picks up right where the first side left off- another low-end static-y roar (the only real difference is that an occasional stutter has been added).Thankfully, the final track comes a bit closer to the mark.While not as stunning as the opening track, it approximates the feeling of being trapped in a howling, electronically treated, arctic windstorm that is intermittently broken by fleeting flickers of music or radio sounds.It is a bit too one-dimensional to go on for ten minutes, but it is undeniably intense and visceral.Oddly, something that sounds vaguely like human vocals appears near the end, but they manage to sound surprisingly like a confused cow.I haven't decided whether that is a good thing or a bad thing yet, but it is certainly noteworthy regardless.
Overall, I'm a bit disappointed and frustrated by this release, as the first track is inarguably great and shows enormous promise.It is obvious that Shinn knows what sounds good and how to do it, but he seems to be coasting on autopilot for much of the rest of this release.This cassette-only release is limited to fifty copies, so move fast if this is your thing.Even if you miss it, the label is worth checking out anyway.
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