From Echophoria Sent Fri, Jul 2nd 1999, 21:27
From Echophoria Sent Fri, Jul 2nd 1999, 21:27
In a message dated 7/2/99 4:09:33 PM xxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xxx writes: >Also, I'd appreciate any opinions on the Richard Thomas/Wormholes disc off >Lo Recordings. I thought the Milk 12" and "Shoes and Radios Attract Paint" >CD were brilliant, but I haven't seen much mention of this Wormholes >"re-structuring". Any good?=20 =20 from Motion - http://motion.state51.co.uk/reviews/281.html=20 -with formating, punctuation, etc. corrections as forwarded by the author. The possibility for disaster loomed large over "Seven Point Plan", with=20 Richard Thomas' perpetually untethered free-style scrapwork hitched to the=20 (more-or-less) straight-ahead three-piece Rock material of Dublin's=20 Wormholes. But since Thomasification is occuring after the fact, the=20 Wormholes having been recorded prior, there's little need for either party t= o=20 compromise. Thomas can be as deliciously "out" as he likes, filling every=20 available wrinkle in the Wormholes' sludgy sound with xylophone runs,=20 saxophone dribblings, squiggly, eely synth, koto clang, creaky hinges and=20 saints-know-what-else he had lying about his Wales homestead. Seven Points i= s=20 billed as a collaboration, but its more of a one-sided Frankensteinian remix=20 project -- and its Thomas' crafty fingers that are all over this record.=20 Everything has been turned downside-up and jumbled: the CD tray is glued to=20 the wrong side of the digipack, the track titles are burped up as absurdist=20 fragments ("Vermicelli/Vorticella 1," "Its A Magpie So I'll Spit And Salute=20 Sir"), and the album reels from Wordsound hiphop ("Route/Also [Eammon=20 Directions]") to stoner rock ("Lieblings Gruppe") and musique concr=E8te =E1 = l=E0=20 John Oswald ("The Gibson Grasshopper") in leaps and lurches. That=20 oft-repeated "Welsh Sun Ra" epithet fits even less cozily here than it did o= n=20 Thomas' frankly brilliant "Shoes and Radios Attract Paint" and "Something=20 With Milk In It". So we're once again sent scurrying in search of an=20 adequately descriptive tagline. You could do worse than "Butthole Surfers=20 colliding head-on with Mogwai, Sun City Girls, and Coldcut in a museum of=20 pyrophones, gravichords, and other lost instruments." But the fun is in=20 working out the formula for each new concoction (Tod Dockstader + Microstori= a=20 =3D "Sceptron Sperry Gyroscope?" Quickspace + Plaid =3D "Yorkshire Rider?"). = Some=20 will prefer Shoes' quirked-out braininess to the (m)ad-lib angularity of thi= s=20 rather lighthearted outing -- and one does miss the refined madness of=20 undiluted Thomas. But "Seven Point Plan" can still screw your head around a=20 full 360=BA. Or do it in completely, as when Thomas lands a one-two Boredoms=20 whiplash punch like "Googleplex-Onomics"/"Synod Lincoln Trails." He's alread= y=20 proven that he has a one-of-a-kind mind as well as a touch of ADD. If it=20 means more enticingly odd records like Seven Point Plan, we can let him have=20 his jollies too. -gg mr. e. now on: nori: 21056 (bathyscaphe)