Antique Brothers
The Brothers Gengras have been making this music even in utero... now they
have unleashed it onto the world in a five-stage birth. We at Phantom Limb have
been blessed to release Volume 5 of this acoustic-electric miasma of glorious
sound.
Some nice words from Foxy Digitalis on Emerge, Murky Sunlight
Very happy to nab the newest album from the Antique Brothers. I’m always up to hear
new talent from my hometown, not for any regional bias, but only to boost the number
of shows I can see in a year. The Brothers show no such partiality as their trip is a bi-
coastal concern, releasing Vol. 1 in this odd series on New York’s impressive new CD-
R label, House of Alchemy. The latest release in the series titled “Vol. 5: Emerge, Murky
Sunlight” comes out of Grant Capes burgeoning hand-made-and-sprayed label,
Phantom Limb Recordings, beautifully packaged and full of incredibly realized home
folk concoctions.
Most tracks are centered on acoustic guitars played in repetitious loops or across long
improvised passages. “Linear Wolf” sets the bar high from the start with some intense
guitar interplay between the brothers that’s positively symbiotic at points when the
notes stay in sync even when the rhythm suddenly fractures or mutates. Guitar figures
on this album always squirm into wilder deviations but never become overtly
ostentatious, leaving room for a slew of other sound devices. There is some very
pleasant and unaccredited flute playing, best experienced during “Black Bart’s Cave”
where the sonorous duet with guitar in the songs final moments tips toward the mystic.
Effects are used subtly throughout most every song, more for manipulating odd, short
sounds into semi-decayed images projected across the track rather than a forced
psychedelic blur. Tape loops and synthesizers figure in heavily at various points,
especially the Ogee mix of “Clipped Wrists and Slit Signals,” an unwound stagger
through psychedelic misdirection that, like most every track on the short album,
consolidates logic down the path in fleeting, beautiful moments. For the most part,
their approach to recording exhibits enough skill to be accessible and enough
ingenuity to keep their esoteric approach to psych fresh.
At its most layered, this album never sounds bloated. Not really spacious, but their
songs always sounds shaken loose. Percussion clatters and rolls across several
tracks, creating transient rhythms that seem to lose steam before getting on track.
With so many layers pulled back, so much space left open, such an approach would fall
flat if the recording was too rigid or contrived. But the Brothers pull it off with laid-back
charisma and the ability to create endless variation through a keen improvisational wit.
When faux-ironic chants of “It’s A Small World” pop up at the end of “A Marked
Discoloration,” we can laugh it off knowing the moment came as truly as could be
expected. But don’t be mistaken. The improvisation has a relaxed feel throughout, but
when everything breaks down on the album closer “Where Are the Bongos?” and they
explode into an ecstatic chant, ending with a piercing electronic shriek, you know this
isn’t any slack-jaw daydream. More like morning disorder as, piece by piece, the day
takes shape: momentary confusion cleared, ideas become fixated upon however
vague or pointless, stresses slowly accumulated, the unknown confronted with ease.
Apparently the final three CD-R’s in the series are being prepped and a completely
different Antique Brothers album is already in the works. If the quality of their output
remains this high, these guys are going to be getting some recognition which, I can
only hope, leads to more live shows. Either way, they are definitely a group to watch in
the coming year. 8/10 -- Kenneth Zubiate (27 February, 2007)
