"The Charles Beamont Demolition Syndicate formed in 1998 with a single purpose: find spaces that are about to be razed and play THE HELL out of them. Exorcise with sound whatever demons may lie within a building's space before that space no longer exists. The usual M.O. involves breaking into an abandoned building which has been slated for demolition, finding the space that most feels right, and scattering to the corners with our instruments (usually three or four acoustic guitars, two or three pig-nosed electric guitars, violins, harmonicas, woodwinds and junk percussion). The exorcism begins slowly, with strings bouncing sounds off walls and corners, searching for the tonal center of the doomed space. Once the tonal center is established for the first few players, other instruments join the hunt until the tonal center is attacked from all possible sides. The center is ridden until it can longer contain the multitude of waves, and the players ride the center outward toward the walls again.
This is the first time we've ever attempted to record an attack, and you can imagine the difficulty. Through a myriad of battery powered remote mics, tape recorders and live mixing, we've managed to capture as closely as possible the feeling of one of our larger exorcisms, at the Veterans Hospital in Allen Park, Michigan, in a large meter/utility room under the deafening established din of mercury-vapor security lights on Easter Sunday at 2:20 in the A.M. We offer no grave blankets for the deceased, only this." -Charles Beaumont Demolition Syndicate
Wow. Not sure what to make of the manifesto that accompanied the tape, but the sound on this single 28:30 track is quite breathtaking. I can make out at least five guitars, and some tamborine and what appears to be a cowbell. This takes awhile to get rolling, and the buildup has its more (and less) interesting moments as things fall apart only to get re-captured, but when the harmonica comes in around the 15 minute mark, it is a little hard to think about anything else but the sheer madness of the moment. The ride out is my personal favorite, and it's over much too quickly. As the last couple of guitars fall apart and descend rapidly into detuned rumblings, revealing the sound of the lights again, I only want more. I'm DEFINITELY looking forward to hearing much more from the Charles Beaumont Demoltion Syndicate and hope I can join them in an attack someday.
"A lovely (quality) recording of spontaneous music done in an abandoned decaying hospital. Maybe that lends it an entropic resonance; certainly the acoustic guitars at the start of this are plucked and resonated to perfection. When odd percussion and stringed things creep in, this becomes a spine-shivering piece with a real sense of space and of place. The whole vibe is of a dramatic and forceful presence pretty rare on the underground CDR scene. Not only that, but its nice and short. Very recommended." -Rob Galpin, Sunny Days Out
