I'll investigate Wolf Eyes in greater detail in future posts, but for now an investigation of this noise meets free jazz toe-tapper.
Anthony Braxton is a post Coltrane/Dolphy free jazz musician who plays most types of saxophone, he stands apart from other jazz players by being a improviser, composer, and philosopher who has released well over 100 records, including the first ever solo sax record 'For Alto' in 1968. He is influenced not only by jazz, but by classical, musique concrete and conceptual artists. He has invented his own concept of music called 'Ghost Trance Music' which no one seems to understand, he is a professor of music at Wesleyan University in Conneticut, and his son is Tyondai Braxton of Battles!
Braxton was brave collaborating with Wolf Eyes, and he just about holds his own amidst the maelstrom, with well placed drones and blowing prior to the white noise climaxes.
This live meeting starts tentatively with echoed and delayed gongs, cymbals and ominous scrapings, before Braxton releases a demon drone and a torrent of squibbles. Contact miked heavy breathing surrounded by Rattlesnakes, analogue squelch and oscillating electric crackles. Test tone sax drones then introduce a robotic cow receiving deep root dental surgery without anaesthetic, this leads to the pay off shit storm, sounding like what it must be like behind a jet engine in full flight, then a stop into one of their trademark low freq boom boom noise assaults 'Stabbed in the Face' with added sax!
The next and final track is listed as Rationed Rot, although Braxton is given the choice onstage between several titles and without hesitation chooses Black Vomit (what happens when you have a partially digested blood in your stomach, most likely from a gastric ulcer), The tension in this track is unbearable, starting with a stalkers creep and inpatient bin lid banging, the merciful release seems to involve a mad villain screaming whilst his face is melted with hot oil, amidst a swarm of bees, Braxton may have left the building halfway through this song, it is unclear.
Ladies and gentleman, the fucking Wolf Eyes.
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