Released
1998
Label
Drone Records
Reviewed by
Michael C. Lund
Contact
Stefan Knappe
Drone Records
Gneisenaustrasse 56
28201 Bremen
Germany
Last Edit/Update
13 March, 1999
Crawl Unit
Tucson Mon Amour 7"EP
(first edition: 250 copies)
Track Listing
Side A
A Hole In Moving Clouds
Side B
Wind Through A Hole
The sound source material for this record was recorded during a live performance by Crawl
Unit (the solo project of J. Colley) at Big Storage in Tucson, Arizona.
These recordings were later fashioned into the two tracks presented here, and while they
retain the elemental fierceness and spontaneity of a live performance, the sound quality
is so rich and clear that one would never imagine their origin.
As hinted at by the titles of the
record and the two individual pieces, this is music inspired by the locale in which they
were first conceived. Both compositions vividly evoke the brutal grandeur of the American
Western desert landscapes, the relentless weather conditions of this region, and -- more
abstractly -- the effect thereof on man and his work. The dominant sounds are of howling
and raging wind-like sounds that continuously rush through both pieces, and appear to send
all manner of metallic objects and constructions into singing vibrations. Impacts,
primarily of metal against metal, likewise resound with varying intensity and pitch
throughout -- at times subtle and far away, at others immediate and frighteningly loud.
Beneath it all, a steady rumbling presence is audible, as if in the distance an even
greater storm was closing in.
Crawl Unit has a
long list of releases to its credit, many of them on J. Colley's own label Povertech,
but also on such notable labels as Manifold, Ant-Zen and
Pure. This 7"EP, however, was released by Drone Records.
It features a wonderful, evocative hand-made collage cover, and is pressed on white vinyl
in a first edition of 250 copies.
