Bastion of Itchy Preeves

Artist: Cerberus Shoal
Label: North East Indie
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 666917003222
EAN: 0666917003222
ASIN: B0001E6ZWC

Release Date: 2004-03-16

Bastion of Itchy Preeves

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Indie Rock

| Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

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Experimental Rock

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Tracks:

Grandsire
A Cloud No Bigger Than A Man's Head
Bogart The Change
Shaky Bull
Baby Gal
Train Car Nursery
Tekel Upharsin
Nonex
Marimus
A Head No Bigger Than A Man's Cloud

Similar Items:

Chaiming the Knoblessone
Crash My Moon Yacht
The Land We All Believe In
Cerberus Shoal
Mr. Boy Dog

Customer Reviews:

zWWWRRRRRRTTTTTY lozenge basket of fries.......2007-01-10

Cerberus Shoal is a band of dualities. Sometimes they're beautiful, sometimes they're irritating. Sometimes they churn out inspired pieces of psychedelic mysticisms. Other times they give in to the trend of avant-garde deconstructionists (see John Zorn or industrial noise acts like Merzbow and Wolf Prey) whose soul purpose is to annoy you with deliberately abrasive and unnerving cataclysms. Most of the time it's pretty interesting stuff, and pretty clever, but sometimes the punky in-jokes can be a bit frustrating. The 2-minute loop of some sort of devil puppet Beefheart at the beginning of "Boghart the Change" was at first annoying to me, but it grows on you. It is one of many pieces here that are loooooong, droney, repetitive, and trance-inducing. The closest comparison I can make is Can, with a similar process of long hallucinatory build-ups with unexpected crescendoes that collapse back into minimalism and continue this several times.

Other examples of this pattern can be seen with "A Cloud No Bigger..." and its similarly named counterpoint, which also manages to be nicely subdued and meditative. "A Head no Bigger..." also ends with a glorious bit of ear candy involving layered music boxes and alien voices spurting out a bit of cosmic philosophy. There are several ambient noise instrumentals as well ("Nonex", "Grandsire") which are nice bits of unusual atmosphere.

As far as the overall sound goes, they have been described by Pitchfork as "a loose, more rustic Thinking Fellers Union". If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just imagine if Tom Waits and Sonic Youth were abducted by aliens and cross-bred. The resulting band of babies were then raised on some far off, otherworldly planet which was mostly desolate like the origins of Earth. Inspired by the unusual harmonies and mind-expanding conepts of their bizarre dimension, they constructed thier own instruments and starting making folk songs and epic compositions for use in their demon-angel-teddy bear-Bob Sagat-dwarfland rituals. Lots of awesome atypical instrumentation here being used in very atypical ways---banjoes tuned to sound like Javanese gamelan bells, deranged muppet choirs, cascading waves of chimes, and unusual noises and special effects galore (but kept to a minimum---most of the noises made here are organic and undistorted).

"Baby Gal" and "Train Car Nursery" are the only songs that approach pop sensibility, and indicative of what quality songs they could construct if they chose to construct an anvant-pop album. "Baby Gal" sounds like a long lost song from Nick Cave's Murder Ballads. Listen to the lyrics, you'll see. It's also got some real interesting use of jaw harp. "Train Car..." follows in similar Waits territory, all carnivalesque like it came from THe Black Rider.

Well, all in all...certainly very unique and compelling, but it's a mixed bag. It's definitely not for the impatient, but if you're the type of person who always thought the drawn-out introspection and build-ups of post-rock bands (Godspeed, Sigur Ros) could use more esotericism and humour, then Cerberus Shoal is definitely what you want. Seriously, though, they are one of the most creative and innovative bands working today. Also, recommended: The mostly instrumental "Mr. Boy Dog" and the political concept album "The Land We All Believe In".

Smitten Once Bitten.......2004-11-18

Cerberus Shoal, of late, has been producing SOCIAL SATIRE of the highest order!
"Bastion of Itchy Preeves" has great, smooth, groovey sound and hypnobite!
Troglodytes and narcissists of tender foot beware!

Sonic Psychout!.......2004-08-04

Cerberus Shoal's Bastion of Itchy Preeves has it all! From odd Balinese gamelan rhythms to King Crimson's prog rock jams to Cromagnon's hippie freakouts to Animal Collective's organic campfire ditties to Les Baxter's theremin-tinged haunted exotica to Kemialliset Ystavat's Finnish folk-stylings to the shimmery lullabies of Toychestra to of course everything Sun City Girls stood for, Cerberus Shoal takes listeners on a psychadelic journey around the world and back in less time than it takes to get to LaGuardia.

There are so many incredible things going on all at once on this album that you will have to listen to it repeatedly and VERY closely just to get even begin to understand everything.

Highly recommended for fans of post rock, psych-folk, finnish folk, world music, avant-garde rock, prog rock, ecclectic jam bands and everything in between!

Music Album:

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Baby Gate ~ Mina

Dinner Music ~ Carla Bley

Live Featuring Bill Harris, Vol. 2 ~ Woody Herman

Roots ~ Kengo Nakamura

Guardian Angels ~ Miroslav Vitous, John Scofield

The End of the Open Road ~ Ted Gioia Trio

Casa Cor: A Música da Casa ~ Various Artists

Ray Charles

Gold ~ Johnny Hallyday

Japanese Folk Songs V.2 ~ Takeshi Terauchi, Bluejeans