With drummer Don Christensen slipping in pointillist beats and David Hofstra’s infectious basslines, the songs on Buy crackle with both precision and abandon. Led by the brash yelps and free-sax squawks of Chance, Contortions spit out fiercely rhythmic tunes charged by the wiry guitar lines of Jody Harris and the dizzying slide guitar of Pat Place. Despite the loss of keyboardist Adele Bertei and bassist Geoge Scott (who refused to sign a new contract demanded by Chance and his then partner, band manager Anya Phillips) Contortions were firing on all cylinders, and their first full-length album, 1979’s Buy, is a marvel of hot-wired energy. Soon after their 1978 debut on the Brian Eno-produced No New York, a compilation that defined the No Wave scene, James Chance’s group Contortions had already evolved-getting sharper, tighter and just plain faster.
There’s a little more spice to proceedings in the purposeful drive of ‘Apakipo’ that peels away to duet for classical guitar and ukulele sparkling with bells in ‘Laboa Grúas Y Andamiaje’, and a real sunset moment in the hazy harmonium of ‘Aries Resurrection’, while ‘Sano Bueltatu Maitia’ makes haunting use of choral sample and field recordings in the chamber piece ‘Ciervo, Burro, Txitxarro’ that triggers a sublime finale movement recalling everyone from Six Organs of Admittance to Hood.įile Under: Experimental, Folk, Kris’s Picks The music is given to an elegant, lilting appeal, swaying from the waltzing meter and softest coos of ‘Makila Da Eroa’ to a more fully fledged songcraft in the closing beauty ‘En Ese Muro De Piedra’ in a gentle way that shows how they got there across the album. The original recordings were made in 2014, marinaded a few years, and mixed down in 2020, distilling their hybrid Spanish-Americana to a hypnotic essence in eight succinct parts revolving heavenly strums, puckered chamber pieces and immersive, almost raga-like drones that will sound lovely on slow summer evenings.
Like a rare comet crossing these pages every so often, Ugarteburu’s lissom classical Spanish guitar strokes are always welcome, and found here in blissed union with vocals, harmonium, bells, marimba, ukuleles, futes, synths and field recordings by Carcáscara’s Fernando Aguirre and Xabier Iriondo. Carcascara: Carcascara II (Hegoa Disk) LP
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