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MUDSUCKERS - Self titled
imprec104 - CD - $11.99
Swamp noise drone. Feedback is layered like mud on the carcass
of song structure. Robert uses primitive cassette manipulation as
well as digital processing to thicken the sound into a swamp. Think
Credence Clearwater Revival without the one chord they knew. On
three of the songs, Pete uses his analog reel-to-reel wall-of-sound
processing apparatus. Longjaw Mudsuckers was inspired by a mid-eighties
cassette where Merzbow mixed John Hudak’s nature sounds into
a screaming mass of sonic debris. Robert recorded a stream after
the huge New Year’s Day storm and Pete plugged it into his
system, making it sound at times like a stream, an ocean, and robots
whispering mechanical secrets.
This CD contains some of the first recordings of Tom Carter’s
circuit bending. Individual attributes of Gabe Mindel’s guitar
roar, Tom Carter’s ebow laptop whirl, and Horton’s clanky
homemades merge into the mud stew. Driving the swirl are samples
of boogie woogie piano, riffs from the session, and pounding drums
of guests Michael Donnelly and Doug “Moonshine” Jin. The
last number, SWEET, conjures the bar room sound of Kansas City,
1920, but recorded inside a thermonuclear reactor. The sounds created
are so raw and tormented it’s hard to believe they were having
a good time. Must have something to do with the times, the war and
the general vacuity of that season’s holidays.
How did these recordings happen? During the torrential
rains of December 2005, caused by global warming, Robert Horton
invited Tom Carter, Gabe and Pete of the Yellow Swans, and Glenn
Donaldson up the hill to his home in El Cerrito for food, drink,
and music-making. As it turned out, Pete and Glenn couldn’t
make it, so Gabe, Tom, and Robert vibrated the peaceful El Cerrito
neighborhood to mud. We had beer, wine and much feedback. The turbulence
of the sounds matched the late December weather. The following week
when Pete came over to overdub his sounds, Robert had found an article
on mudsuckers in the Berkeley Daily Planet. The headline was “Mudsuckers
may be ugly, but they have value.” A band was born.
A mudsucker is a fish that’s mostly a mouth,
which spends its whole life on one patch of mudflat. Scientists
use these fish to monitor carcinogens, endocrine disrupters, and
other toxic chemicals in coastal waters. The group’s name as
well as some of the song titles were taken from this article. The
second song, Here Come the Mud Dragons was a phrase spoken by three
kids splashing in the mud in a local park. Another song Electric
Sunflower, was named by Glenn Donaldson in an email explaining why
he couldn’t be at the session.
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