CIA Debutante - Down, Willow LP
CIA Debutante - Down, Willow LP
With their 3rd vinyl long player for Siltbreeze, CIA Debutante have successfully out-flanked those critics who have been forever chattering, "will they ever be as big as Artery?" To paraphrase Fred Ward in Tremors "Artery? Hell, Clock DVA!" All bristling aside, such questions & answers don't carry much weight these days. Such is the language of pettifoggers. And who's got time for them? We're trying to sell records here.
'Down,Willow' sees our heroes Paul & Nathan attaining S.T.A.S. (Superior Third Album Status), honing in with a top gloss of new & proto experimental, post-punk, recitation & vibe. Imagine fusing The Fall's 'Grotesque' & Morton Subotnick's 'Sidewinder' into a sole entity? Sure, there's going to be lots of sparks, flash fires, smoke of all colors + bickering, but from this vantage, what a light show! There's even some shredding on here that sounds like they may have lit this fucker w/Martin Kippenberger's copy of Guitar Hero. Please take it off, it's too good!
If you've been paying attention to the bands countless tape efforts, or just their recent vinyl outings, there's no denying the Mach thunder 'Down, Willow' is gonna roll across thine cranium. And should this be your introduction to the band, feel free to pretend none of the aforementioned bullshit matters.
And welcome, adventurous listener!
RIYL; Luxus, The Kuemmerling Trio, The Knowhow Knockers, Weib & Doof.
Word of Echo:
Third LP in as many years for Siltbreeze from our current favourite wreckers of civilisation/observers of inevitable demise. Our heroic duo of Paul Bonnet and Nathan Roche are now approaching something like peak performance, the sound of collapsing buildings, elective corruption and phone-tapped static interference sharpened like a prison shiv, ever ready to jib just below the ribs, ten times over. They've long been masters of paranoid murk and general 21st century despair, though Down, Willow does seem to be especially hollowed-out and fated, In Quest of the Unusual sandblasted with doublespeak. This is the end and it goes on forever. Well, the soul is the prison of the body after all.