Sea Moss - Bidet Dreaming (Crash Symbols / Feeding Tube, 2019)

Oh, it’s been too long, people.  Our apologies, but the summer plays tricks with all its sun and heat and fun and such.  But we’re back over here at Nine Chainz HQ, albeit briefly before another adventure looms when we head to Lake Erie to wrestle with water flora and sand and flotsam.  But we’re here now, so let’s dive into this beast of a record by Portland duo Sea Moss.  These cats are wonky in a post-punk meets post-cyborg meets post-noise meets post-shriek meets post-electrons sort of way.  And it’s a delightful wonk that they purvey, a crafty zaniness that is nearly indescribable.

Snazzy drumming reigns supreme, courtesy of skin pounder Zach D’Agostino, who also lays down some ‘tronics.  Noa Ver is they of the Kazu Makino meets Deerhoof meets Caroliner vocals-as-telephony trip and this individual also won’t let us forget that they are wrangling electrons too.  Describing the sound that this pair emanates is particularly difficult, as they defy comparison and stretch beyond genre boundaries.  There are definitely songs here, but they’re wrapped in modem squeals, fuzzy time signatures, ray gun gurgles, and the hypnotically high-pitched voice of Noa Ver.  I smell Lightning Bolt at times, but there’s way more funk involved.  The aforementioned Deerhoof or Caroliner?  Maybe a dollop.

Forget it.  Just sit back and listen up, kiddos.  Bidet Dreaming is where it’s at.  There are no duds here, as all songs are rocketry incarnate, incendiary in execution and energy.  Take “Knock Knock Joke” for example.  It starts off all coy and sparse but ends up coming to a boil in no time – a screaming across the sky, as Thomas Pynchon might put it.  This track is the decoder ring from which all remaining songs can be deciphered – it contains all of Sea Moss’ many moods in one tight package.  And there’s a lot to love: the thunderous drums paired sommelier-style with Noa Ver’s shrill siren call; a DIY electronics aesthetic that takes its time sliding into top gear; a cantankerous rhythm that hangs together precariously.

It’s not enough for us to describe the mayhem of Sea Moss, you must experience it.  So sidle over to either the Crash Symbols Bandcamp or the Feeding Tube Records website and become wrapped in the warped sensibility of this dynamic duo.

Dire Wolves - Paradisiacal Mind (Feeding Tube / Cardinal Fuzz / Pome Pome Tones, 2018)

Continuing along the lysergic snail trail that was birthed last week with the Wilder Gonzales Agreda release, here we’ve landed in an American neo-psych boogie spiritualist mode with this new beast from DireWolves – who refer to themselves on this release as Dire Wolves (Just Exactly Perfect Sisters Band).  The roots of this crew stretch way back into the 1990s.  Their subterranean tendrils originate both in the Darla Records sunshine pop-psych-tronica zone – Brian Lucas was a member of the should-be-legendary Mirza – and the equally ancient strange folk ways of The Iditarod, whose Jeffrey Alexander has gone on to play with Black Forest/Black Sea, Jackie-O Motherfucker and these Dire Wolves we’re speaking about.  Their tunes sail within all of these influential orbits as well as the various Kosmische rock and astral jazz landmarks that have woven their way into the contemporary psychedelic streams of thought.  It’s a sonic brew that’ll put you out, in the best way possible!

Paradisiacal Mind is a five-track epic from this San Francisco outfit, hitting all the high notes mentioned previously, and leads off with a flavorful rock-n-roll creeper called “Unfettered and Alive”.  This relatively short jam incorporates delicious stabs of violin and mysterious ghost vocals, which fog up the already misty windows and leave us hungry for what’s next.  “Just Live Your Life Behind Your Eyes” is a hazy vision, one which evades being recognized at the outset, but which eventually achieves clarity over its lengthy running time.  It’s a woven droner that takes off toward the heavens with a maddening energy.

“We Are Stardust” is a stream of proggy jazz that disappears into a cavern of acoustic guitar and bizarre field recordings.  The lysergic energy of 1970s Kosmische out-rock is smeared all over “In and Out of Den Garten He Goes”, which is a swirling, bleary-eyed maelstrom of madness that sets us up for the monumental psych rock blast of the title track.  Coming in at just over seventeen minutes, this piece is the motherlode.  It’s a folding together of all of Dire Wolves’ influences into a single, soaring epic that alone is worth the price of admission.

I highly encourage sourcing out a copy of this maddening slab of free-rock mania.  You can score yourselves the wax over at Cardinal Fuzz in the EU or at Feeding Tube in North America.  However, if your preferred flavor is digital, head on over to Bandcamp to reel in these cosmic sounds.