Fadensonnen represent the absolute cream of the improv guitar-noise crop, so to hear them hit vinyl with a resounding CRACK should be a priority if you read this column. Badlands bristles with post-no wave energy, all-instrumental and poised to break the record for most circuits broken in a single sit-down. The ear has so many points to find purchase it’s impossible to pick one. That’s what so impressive about the whole maelstrom of Side A: Each element is blended together, yet set apart just enough to trick the ear into believing (save for the theatrics of the guitarist). I don’t hear drums but I sense them deep in the thicket of hot, wet sick. Side B turns the ship around. We get readily apparent, half-flailing, cymbal-worshiping drums, droning bass, more of that singular, exceptional guitar abuse, and a psych-noise brew not unlike portions of AMT offerings and/or all-out Matta Gawa jamz. But Fadensonnen’s sense of clinical cool and restraint undercuts the gestures toward instrumental excess and psych. It’s an exercise in blown-out precision and repetition that sucks all into its orbit. Whole sections of pure feedback-doused frenzy tend to do that, too, and we’ve got a hair-clump mess of it closing out the record. There are 150 copies of Badlands in existence, and they’re handmade, so find a way to make your dreams happen soon or you’ll end up drinking the dirt of denial.
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