Banana Nutrament

3/06/2006
Forbidden Fruits


Had the pleasure of hearing Terrestrial Tone's new album Dead Drunk today on headphones as I navigated through Chinatown on my morning commute. At least three or four times I witnessed the mean feat of ice shards shattering in sync to Dave Portner and Eric Copeland's static blasts after being whipped off false pagoda rooftops by the wind.

It may be their third record, but it's the first time they've shrugged their shoulders and given in to foaming up an amalgam of their respective bands' sounds. Every now and then an Animal Collective canine yelp enters the proceedings only to be sanded down by an astringent Black Dice-ish pedal wash. Instead of Oboroed/Circus Lives' pairing of two longform workouts, we get a collection of shorter compositions, ranging from octagonal sea shanties of the digital age to nocturnes for the melting ice.

Terrestrial Tones - The Sailor
**Buy Dead Drunk at AB-CD**


It's hard to tell how much influence (if any) Terrestrial Tones' electronic forebears have had on their methods of composing these junkyard loops. Conrad Schnitzler's "Electric Garden" is the closest thing at arm's length, coming across like a soundtrack for an unrealized Kubrick/Carpenter collaboration or a proto "Hamburger Lady" without the caterwauling. Just grasping at straws here, but you never know, even the comix big up this ex-Tangerine Dream, ex-Kluster synthesizer wunderkind.

Conrad Schnitzler - Electric Garden
**Buy Ballet Statique at Red Eye Records**


Holla at ya Allah.

While I don't think anyone was going to drop a Rushdie style fatwa on the two of them, it probably wasn't the worst idea in the world to excise this track from the forthcoming reissue.

Brian Eno and David Byrne - Qu'ran
**My Life in the Bush of Ghosts will be reissued March 28th, sans this track from the original**