Jessica Rylan / C. Spencer Yeh - Cincinnati/Reading (Amerige Records, reissue)
I am pretty spent on trying to type reviews after a rather robust weekend of listening. Not really remembering all that I listened to between at home, in the car (which I finally rigged with a CD player) and elsewhere. But hey! This LP has been sitting around in the open, so I definitely remember that.
This reissue is excellent. If either artists' work interest you, I highly suggest picking it up. Double LP expands upon a series of recordings made in Ohio and Massachusetts. I was expecting more "bleep bloop meets violin" on this whole thing, but it surprisingly only enters that zone on the final side. For the rest of this, you have moody drones, creeping feedback and some vocal yelps that Jessica usually loved to bust out at this time. It works so well. To boot, there is an excellent conversation zine that comes with this thing. I think it shines a light on both artists who, despite making such wicked and dark sounds, really fall more under the RRRon philosophy of noise as "the true sound of love." These two sound like they loved each other. I love that.
Hex Minora - Idolatry: The Second Death 1992 - 1998 (Tribe Tapes)
We go from reissue to compilation now with this very tight release from Tribe. This is almost the complete opposite of the "true sound of love" style noise. Hex Minora is filthy and perverted. Synth penetrates your ear like something nasty just made its way in there. Do you like it? Doesn't matter, it's there. Vocals and phone calls that lay over top of these synths are equally as depraved. It's a sickening comp and a great introduction to the project. I will let it lay on my kitchen stack, as I think a revisit will be needed soon.
