Atavistic Records
2001
Destroy All Nels Cline
About This Album
In which the lanky longtime axe hero of Los Angeles' creative music scene seeks to "explore the possibilities of many stringed instruments and their timbres...and to create a climate of catharsis." Oh yeah, and get his noise improv rocks off in the guitar army company of close compadres Woodward Lee Aplanalp, Carla Bozulich, and G.E. Stinson. So the relevant consumer warning is for anyone (like maybe Bozulich fans expecting some traces of the Geraldine Fibbers) who find torrential maelstroms of guitar noise anathema to steer clear -- it's dense pack time here with four guitars, rhythm section, and occasional guests Zeena Parkins and Wayne Peet.

There's no easy entry, because "Spider Wisdom" leaps right in with abstract swatches of guitar effects -- the sonic treatments come creeping and crawling at you from all sides of the web. Cline's pieces rarely stay in one vein, so "Chicagoan" boasts stated themes before locking into a foundation riff with a space bloop effects solo by Aplanalp that resolves into a holocaust, followed by a very direct Cline solo over that almost vintage jazz-rock fusion riff.

The stately "Progression" waxes melancholy, "The Ringing Hand" is an extended display of Cline's lyrical side, and "Friends of Snowman," a dreamy, crystalline dynamics downshift that evokes the sound of snowflakes falling.
Track List (try tracks 2,4 and 6)

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