Reviews

Wire - Dec. Issue 2005

Grandmas Cookies

C’è un feeling da saga spaziale in questo cd dei Send My Regards, sigla sotto cui si nascondono tali Justin Cassidy e Patrick Rodriguez, immagino alle prese con laptop, synth ed armamentario elettronico variamente assortito (loro direbbero shit electronics), uscito per la stramba Angry Vegan. Prendiamo il primo brano Stay Black dove sembra di stare a bordo di una navicella spaziale sul punto di essere inghiottita da un buco nero, gli occhi fissi sui monitor ai fosfori verdi della cabina di comando, che dietro una coltre di rumore bianco ed interferenze varie lasciano intravedere segnali audio/video di una qualche forma di vita che ronza minacciosa nelle immediate vicinanze. Un rombare insidioso, bleeps, rigurgiti digitali, samples vocali resi deformi da una cascata di plugins e mandati in loop, il ritmo che d’improvviso rallenta, la forza di gravità che scivola via. Piace molto quest’inizio, per un disco a base di ambient malevola, digital noise, glitch, effetti sci-fi, occasionali folate di synth simil Faust (Don’t Feed Chinchilla), sempre al servizio di un suono bello pieno, prossimo alla saturazione. Diversi i momenti interessanti, segnali che sui monitor di cui sopra brillano e pulsano con maggiore forza degli altri. Warm Legs assomiglia ad una cometa in rapido avvicinamento con malinconiche lacrime robotiche ad accompagnarne la corsa, e alla fine, dopo l’impatto, tra esplosioni intermittenti, come fuochi d’artificio che risuonano negli abissi cosmici sembra di osservare la fine di un piccolo mondo da dentro un film di Tarkovsky. Meno cosmica, ma più personale, Lady Stay Dead, colpi come funerei tamburi marziali, background di formicolii elettrici e respirazioni bocca a connettore di chissà cosa, mentre effetti di stampo Warp (non riesco a non pensare a certi suoni degli Anti Pop Consortium) rimbalzano in superficie. A chiudere degnamente il disco Manual Labor , gli ultimi stanchi istanti di vita di uno sconosciuto device meccanico in agonia che si congeda tra ondate di distorsioni rumoristiche di cui Pita andrebbe fiero.
Aggiunto: November 5th 2005
Recensore: alfio castorina
Voto:
Link Correlati: Angry Vegan
Hits: 60
Lingua: italian

JUSTIN CASSIDY / PATRICK RODRIGUEZ:
"SEND MY REGARDS - GRANDMAS COOKIES"
pfMENTUM / Angry Vegan
With this album we certainly don't have a conventional musical project. Using vintage electronic sounds, the artists take us to journeys through regions near to Dark Ambient, Industrial Meditation, and other subterranean genres, displaying their imagination. There are static passages, with a strong presence of ghostly electric whispers, and some machinery effects. Other parts contain distorted electronic shrieks and strident metallic textures.
EDGAR KOGLER - http://www.amazings.com/reviews2005.html

Eleven Fifty -EP
Contributor: Eli Ellsworth

Rating: 4 1/2
Artist's Label:
Artist's Web: Send My Regards

Experimental music is quite a challenging adventure for those who dare to traverse its winding unfamiliar pathways. The hope is that journeying thrill seekers will actually take a chance and venture onto a road less traveled. It seems easy, but few are willing to step off the beaten path when it comes to creating unexpected raw sounds. There is also the temptation to follow in the footsteps of those infrequent souls that have already carved out another direction. Suddenly, what was once a courageous exploration in the exciting unknown has become a veritable high-traffic freeway of imitators, blindly racing toward patterned mediocrity.

Thankfully, the members of Send My Regards are slowly veering away from the interstate highway on their latest detour EP, Eleven Fifty. The narrow road they now travel on is by no means overtly perilous, but the certainty of what lies ahead is indeed vague and mysterious. Perhaps this is what presses them to go on even further than they had anticipated. They move at a pace that is neither timid nor doubtful but determined. Send My Regards momentarily glance behind them to take one final view of the road from whence they came, but it has vanished. This might prove a frightful predicament to some, but these intrepid wayfarers know they have traveled too far to turn back now. Their efforts are indeed admirable.

Eleven Fifty is a rather interesting five-song EP. It deals primarily in the experimental realm, with periodic leanings toward electronica. The soundscapes on this CD are intricate but extremely subtle, detached, ambient and unstructured. Occasionally, the duo introduces staggered rhythms and pulsating electro-noise, as well as variable sonic pitch and static feedback. The dissonant tones contained herein shift through varying levels of transient serenity and ominous gloom. Send My Regards is undoubtedly trying to set a mood, which delicately carries you from beginning to end.

This is remarkably well done. Even more impressive is that their sound was accomplished without the use of sequencing programs and noise sample files. It reveals that Eleven Fifty required a bit more effort and intelligence than your typical computerized method of "cut, copy and paste." Keep an eye on this duo from Oxnard, California. I understand that they are diligently working on a full-length as well.

http://www1.agouti.com/bands/sendmyregards/elevenfifty/sendmyregards.asp

Grandmas Cookies - LP

Mmm, Grandma's Cookies! Brings back memories doesn’t it? Those tasty little treats sure did hit the spot. But I don’t think Grandma ever made anything as delicious as what Send My Regards have dished up for us here. You think I’m kidding? Old Mother Hubbard might have snacks in her cupboard, and she may be a whiz in the kitchen, but I guarantee she can’t follow these guys’ recipe. Sorry, granny.

• When it comes to glitchy electro-experimental intergalactic communiques, Send My Regards is more than just blip interference on the radar screen. They control the transmission by jamming the signal and distorting the feed. Sonically and artistically, Grandma's Cookies is a fantastic evolution from their prior ambitious release in August 2004.

• Whereas their debut EP,
Eleven Fifty, embraced more rhythmically ambient electronica, Grandma's Cookies de-emphasizes discernable beat patterns and is texturally more complex. Their creative layering and manipulation of cerebral sounds is penetratingly brilliant.

• In several instances, a desperate needling sensation underlies the atmospheric splendor that Send My Regards radiates through its dynamic pulse emissions. Malevolent droning, disquieting distortion and weird samples of AIS insurance commercials are just the tip of this black iceberg! I’ve listened to this impressive masterpiece repeatedly from start to finish, and nary did my astute interest wean nor did my countenance diminish.

• Go figure that these upcoming quality noise purveyors would surface out of the
relatively unknown Southern California city of Oxnard! It just goes to show how important things are always in the places you least expect them. - Eli Ellsworth • Agouti Music