23 September 2015

RECOMMENDATION #67

FLYING SAUCER ATTACK - INSTRUMENTALS 2015
drag city 2015

it's been fifteen years since the last FSA album, a full two decades since their early works which remain a pillar in my collection -- some history - FSA was a duo at the time of those crucial early works - DAVID PEARCE and (then girlfriend) RACHEL BROOK - and then it was PEARCE's solo project for a brief time preceding said fifteen year hiatus -- INSTRUMENTALS peels the FSA onion, removes both the outermost layers of noise and the pop centric core then immerses what's left in spaced out LOREN CONNORS esque post blues experimentation and ROY MONTGOMERY esque reverb drenched solo guitar compositions by way of intimate cassette and cdr recordings with rich desert drone textures like STEVEN R SMITH standing in the shadow of kubrick & clarke's monolith, pushing FSA's "rural psychedelia" to its limit, as perhaps foreshadowed by their self titled debut's closer "the season is ours" and occasionally overlapping 90s contemporary guitar wizards WINDY & CARL, while still fully capable of that distinctive noisy guitar bliss that only FSA could ever deliver, stretching out on the third and final side with a couple 8+ minute tracks -- INSTRUMENTALS is an unexpected boon, surefire year end top ten lock, less a triumphant return, more a glorious reincarnation