Excitingly mad new release from Chicago's Gary Glitter's Hard Drive, a duo of many keys. Captured live and pristine from a performance at WHPK Radio, Chicago. Gary Glitter's Hard Drive...what can be said to describe these sounds? Through a battery of keyboards old and new and a barrage of effects of varying sonoric quality, GGHD seek and destroy any worn out notions of what a keyboard improv/noise act should be. Setting up tableau after tableau of droning, warped loops, the duo frighteningly jams, bangs, screeches, screams and SCHRREONNCHSKS atop in a seemingly endless spaghetti-like pattern. Or is it more like chicken gumbo? It's a perfect example of the rare two-person band that sounds fresher and fresher with each listen. It's impossible to get through this record without hearing something new (or some new influence, intended or not) each time. I couldn't believe the BLUES I was hearing upon my initial listen, but that soon gave way to hearing a new soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining." Beginning with the topical "Gary Glitter Song For Michael Jackson To Sing," the band warms up each instrument and runs through a smattering of effects, looping keyb-beat after keyb-beat and generating an amazing texture of electronic organ bliss. "The Red Menace" shows off their star instrument, a looping red keyboard of yore. The scraping beats set this song aprt from the others. This is the bluest, grimiest piece on the album, and conjures up images of Travis Bickle cruising the rain-slicked streets of New York in a futuristic electric Taxi Cab. It sounds like Alice Coltrane reincarnated as Keith Jarret, but prejudiced against ACOUSTIC piano instead! Finally settling down with the droney (but never the same drone...once you get "used" to it, it changes up) "Sweet Emoticon," GGHD brings us out of this trance with what sounds like a million wind chimes in a wind tunnel that's been heavily (heavenly?) wah-wahed.
I'm told this is the clearest recording of GGHD to date, and on this release it's a benefit. We can hear the men pound each key when they really mean it, lending a bizarre acoustic percussion element to the proceedings. It's short and sweet, and a trip you won't be able to go more than a few minutes without wanting to take again.
