ASPHALT AND DELAY

tracklist: A1. Fragment D A2. Daughter Of The Mind B1. Möbius Strip B2. White Devil Black Heart B3. True Mad North http://soundcloud.com/audiomer-music/asphalt-delay-excerpt#new-timed-comment-at -478332 ˜Whiteout™ is a weather condition in which visibility and contrast are severely reduced. The horizon disappears completely and there are no reference points at all, leaving one with a distorted orientation. These same characteristics could be applied to the sound of the musical brainchild of Lin Culbertson and Tom Surgal. In the past White Out have been heralded for the way they entirely reinvent themselves to accommodate the creative personalities of their many prestigious collaborators, including Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, Jim O™Rourke and WIlliam WInant and many others. Recorded over an extended period of time in an undisclosed midtown Manhattan location high above the city streets, Asphalt and Delay marks the first time in White Out™s recorded history that Culbertson and Surgal have devoted an entire album to duo improvisations. Each of the five compositions captures a different hue of the spectrum of sound in White Out™s sonic universe. Asphalt and Delay puts White Out in a whole new light, unfettered by any external influences they burn super nova bright. The artwork for this LP is provided by Belgian photographer Yoko Tack. THE WIRE I'm always a sucker for a demonstration of how less van be more, and this New York duo deliver such a demonstration with this, only their fifth studio outing in 15 years. It's the first release in which they have not brought in any accomplices, relying instead on their highly developed instincts for collective improvisation, and their phenomenal ability to wring the most varied and surprising sonorities form their basic synthesiser and drums set-up. The result is a wild ride for the ears through spaceways both outer and inner, and quite possibly their best work yet. Tom Surgal and Lin Culbertson are downtown people by birth. Their locale is important to what they do, as they have internalised the NYC tradition to the point that whatever they do has both a jazz attitude and a beatnik vibe that is fully innate and thus also fully realised. So when I say that this record sounds like both Sun Ra jamming with a brigade of organ-grinder's monkeys, and the unreleased second part of Leave The City by the Coaquette faction of MEV, these are both good things. There is space here, as well as compressed narrative concentration. The key track is šDaughter Of The Mind›, where Culbertson's wordless vocalising floats across drifts of precussive tinkering as a buzzing synthesiser desultorily duels with occasional blurts of autoharp. Gradually the synth becomes more demanding as the percussion sharpens its forward momentum and the vocal becomes an insistent but wordless supplication to some unnamed deity. The breadth of texture and timbre deployed here is staggering, the sheer freedom of construction is exhilarating, and the economy of means with which it is realised radically defines the level of expertise and taste on display. Surgal is one of the under-recognised greats of free drumming, and Culbertson's daring instrumental freefalling without a parachute is without peer. In the field of free improvisation, where dilettante tinkering is distressingly common these days, White Out have planted their freak flag proudly in the midst of battle, daring all comers. By Bruce Russell, THE WIRE 336, February 2012 QUOTES A wild ride for the ears through spaceways both outer and inner, and quite |No possibly their best work yet." - Bruce Russel, The Wire Structured without compromising their relentless aggression and control, |No White Out have produced a refreshing and unsettling record with all the charm, physicality and unpredictability of really great improvised music."  By Chris Trowell, Foxy Digitalis