deep distance 2017, edition of 300
"vinyl outing at last for the incredible freeform guitar noise freakouts of Manchester’s Yerba Mansa. Previously confined to occasional, epic live shows; these heavy guitar & percussion only (bar the whacked out vocals of Edwin in part) pieces represent something of a curveball for the label here. nods to those revered early VU live boots, with a dose of early Amon Duul, even the mighty guitar heavy improv of early Television shows and more recently the Flower / Corsano duo. This from fellow DD recording artiste Nick Mitchell: 'Edwin Stevens and Andrew Cheetham are two of Manchester's most prolific purveyors of raging, outer-limits rock-ism. Both members of free-rock army DSDV as well as countless other projects, they take a similar blueprint for their head-to-head skyscraping duo, with a singularity of heavy chord chug that aligns them with Gown or even Michael Flower & Chris Corsano.' clear khaki vinyl pressing of 300, beautiful art from Dylan Hughes, destined to sell out super quick." - DEEP DISTANCE
well if you're a PSI LAB enthusiast (how many of you are out there i wonder) and you read that juicy write up you would know there is no chance i wouldn't be drooling all over it, even if i wasn't already a fan, which i am -- YM's THE OTHER THING [REC #100] made my top ten tapes of 2016 -- while i initially tried to distinguish what YM are doing as separate albeit parallel to the free rock line as loosely plotted by a precious chosen few acts, it may be closer to the truth to say YM are the ideal distillation of free rock as might exist in my mind at least, sonic transcendentalism emanating from this free rock lagrange point affording YM some advantage that might not be easy to express in quantitative terms but can be qualitatively appreciated nonetheless, as if YM are on a mission from god whether they know it or not, something no other free rockers can attest by my measure
UNTITLED (which i must admit i have always found to be a paradox of a title) collects this "psychotic rock power duo"s first jams as a band, recorded december 2014, almost a year before last year's THE OTHER THING - with that it isn't fair to consider this a proper follow up, but in any case this is every bit on par with the level of excellence previously established - elevated comparisons to TOM CARTER, GOWN and SIX ORGANS still apply, with a stronger blues flavor, like a kinetic reinterpretation of the MAZZACANE post blues model, rippin it up like GR & FULL BLOWN EXPANSION or GUNSLINGERS or a bizarro world JOHN DWYER binged out on BARDO POND, LES RALLIZES DENUDES and THE STOOGES - an essential bare bones counterpoint to the "big band" approach of DSDV - in that i suppose this is a bold extension of minimalism - and so i again find myself entertaining the thought that "this isn't free rock"
https://www.facebook.com/deepdistancerecordings/posts/1795593754032838
