I'm now in my third year of hosting a regular "rock" show on a collegeradio station (I've been hosting various other experimental andnon-thematic shows since 1986 mind you), and I have been finding myselfincreasingly disgruntled with the current trends of "rock" music. Itseems that the best songwriters in bands who employ theguitar/bass/drums format play both very slowly and timidly, while theupbeat, more energetic stuff is mostly sloppy, painfully derivative,poorly written, or too damned wimpy. While an increasing amount ofnoisy, more experimental rock is feverishly exciting, none of it reallyfits in to the first radio show of the morning—the "morningdrive"—where I can provide a viable alternative to mall-rock and talkradio on the rest of the dial without getting too abrasive, weird ordepressing. Bearing that in mind, it is no wonder that I find Kinski'sthird album (their Sub Pop debut) a long overdue, much needed,refreshing break from the mundane. Nearly all of the songs areinstrumental, most stretch close to or over the ten minute mark, andall are fully developed with multiple movements and incorporateinfluences from a number of styles. It starts with the hum of a tone,and then another and another, patiently layering on top of each otheruntil the first guitar comes in, and just when the song appears to havereached its identity, BANG!, the -real- meat kicks in. Get used tobeing surprised. While this Seattle quartet has been seen spending timewith hippies and dronesters, thanks to performances at Terrastock andconcerts with other strange attractors, their sound is neitherintrospective nor headphonic, climaxing with enough noise to please theinner child and a rhythm strong and solid enough to get the wallsshaking to the beat. At times, there's a distorted wall of blurryguitar sound but nobody's gazing at their shoes. After the first twoinstrumental songs, bassist Lucy Atkinson takes to the microphone, withthe fast-paced, aggressive "Rhode Island Freakout," which could easilymake any Pixies fan cream their jeans. Add that to the echo-ladenopening/white noise distortion ending of the following "Schedule forUsing Pillows & Beanbags," the blissful drum-less gem, "I Think IBlew It," and the sitar-esque guitar sounds on "Your Lights Are (OutOr) Burning Badly," and Kinksi are clearly far from being a one-trickpony or easily classifiable. This album is gratifying enough with onlyeight songs that total nearly an hour. Remember their name: no doubt itwill be dropped much more in the coming years.Read More
