Hototogisu + Burning Star Core – Hototogisu + Burning Star Core [LP]

"HOTOTOGISU—the duo of UK experimentalist MATTHEW BOWER (SKULLFLOWER, SUNROOF et al.) and New York-based-guitarist MARCIA BASSETT (DOUBLE LEOPARDS, ZAIMPH, GHQ)—are all about impact, about taking the physical aspect of sound and hallucinating it to the point of abstraction, so much so that for all of the complexity of their music it often sounds like it’s standing still, simply hanging in the air and vibrating without anything approaching a ‘plot’ to bring it to a point. By contrast, BURNING STAR CORE, the trio of drummer TREVOR TREMAINE, ROBERT BEATTY on electronics (both of whom also play in HAIR POLICE) and C. SPENCER YEH on violin and electronics, are more overtly propulsive, usurping ‘classic’ rock form via electronics and drums but still focused on momentum, on the jam as a form of structural gravity, on the unfolding of action via development over time. This all-improvised studio meeting is the perfect reconciliation of both tendencies, of Hototogisu’s obsessive layering of strata after strata of violently conceived noise and of Burning Star Core’s epic, post-Kraut thunder-punk style.”

Yik Yak, 2008