Squid Fist – Face/Off CD

Hidden Birdhouse Records

With squealing feedback and rampant drums and cymbals, Squid Fist’s Face/Off is an interesting piece of improvisational work. At times, the beating drums add this strange, frantic effect, as if this album is the soundtrack to a futuristic, ritualistic tribe of savages enacting some sort of grisly rite. At other times, the album takes on a very ambient noise, incidental, found sound feel, as if recording to audio the bizarre situations said savages get themselves into.

The album starts out with Flesh Chair, which reminds me a bit of The Gerogerigegege with a bit less of a wall of sound, full frontal assault feel. The track becomes very minimal near the end and foreshadows what the rest of this album is about: Squid Fist switches between a tribal, cacophonous sound and a very improvisational approach. Dolphin Staph, for example, takes on a weird situational feel with some very disturbing wailing near the end. Water.com reminds me a bit of Aube’s incredibly minimalistic Aqua Syndrome. The juxtaposition of these two sounds works out very well, and just when Face/Off seems to get redundant, the album ends satisfyingly.

Amidst the chaos, some skewed rhythms can be picked out of this album, but Face/Off consists, in a large part, of a lot of clanking and clattering mixed with radio noise on weird frequencies. The sound itself is very engrossing and changes enough not to get boring. Bringing it all together with improvisational drum work, Face/Off isn’t entirely original but is definitely worth at least a listen through.

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