Thursday, September 9, 2010

cruiser - sunshine woman tape (2009)


RIYL: Hella, early Deerhoof
It took a long time for me to come to terms with the fact that the Hella I loved (of Hold Your Horse Is, Total Bugs Bunny on Wild Bass, and Bitches Ain't Shit But Good People) ceased to exist years ago, replaced by a festering undead version of Hella whose corpse grows more bloated and unsettling with each subsequent album.  Imagine then the ecstatic sense of relief I felt when I heard this, a two-piece from Portland whose mathy, frenetic and propulsive rock fills the niche that Hella used to inhabit!  And then consider the crushing disappointment when I learned that Cruiser only released a tape and a CD-R, both long out of print, and called it a day.  Sunshine Woman Tape is exhilarating and FUN, unceasingly moving forward in dizzying zig-zags, stopping and starting, throwing everything AND the kitchen sink in, and it's a shame that we'll never get anything more from them.  Although definitely derivative of early Hella (and sure, I guess, other like-minded math rock duos), Cruiser pull it off incredibly well and this will please anyone left high and dry by Hella's recent output.

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