ARTIST: Indian Jewelry
TITLE: Invasive Exotics
LABEL: Monitor Records
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 200kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 44m total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-09-12
RIP DATE: 2006-10-05
Track List
----------
1. Lesser Snake 4:19
2. Powwow 3:02
3. Dirty Hands 6:04
4. Ratnoise 0:15
5. Come Closer 3:26
6. Going South 10:13
7. Health And Wellbeing 5:18
8. Partying With Jandek 1:19
9. Lying On The Floor 3:28
10. Lost My Sight 6:47
Release Notes:
http://www.swarmofangels.com/
http://www.myspace.com/indianjewelry
http://www.monitorrecords.com/
Hailing from Houston, Texas, and as of a few years ago, living in Los Angeles,
Indian Jewelry have inserted themselves into the L.A. avant scene. Equally at
home in bigger clubs like the Echo or underground venues like Il Corral, they
have finally gotten wide release for this collection of tracks recorded over the
past two years.
Indian Jewelry have built their reputation on a string of hot singles and their
hallucinogenic live shows. Live, drum machines pump out distorted, limping beats
over synth bass and noisy samples from Erika Thrasher's corner, while Rodney
Rodriguez pounds on a couple of floor toms, cymbals, and pieces of metal, and
Tex Kerschen's guitar ricochets off the walls. The band plays around with
fragments of songs and expanding them into jams that sound like a dream marriage
between Suicide and early Butthole Surfers, monotonous rhythm married to guitar
pyrotechnics, vocal histrionics, and squealing synth stabs, all bathed in the
blinding flash of the strobe light. Shows also feature many guest musicians, and
this album is no different, with too many contributors to list.
My only gripe with this album is that, being older material, it doesn't really
represent what Indian Jewelry are capable of these days. There are plenty of
totally killer jams on here, the dirty blues-in-an-echo-chamber stomp of 'Lesser
Snake', the endless filthy funk of 'Going South', the rhythmic workout of 'Dirty
hands' with it's scratchy guitar and cool drawl vocals from Tex, the spazz-noise
disco of 'Lying On The Floor', and the wobbly drunken eastern-isms of 'Powwow',
all of these are amazing songs in their own right, but the recording can't
really capture the live experience. This album is almost like a decoder ring for
what goes on there, which is the exploration of the intersections of sounds
between the members and their respective instruments, plus whatever lucky
audience member gets something to bang on. Hopefully they will continue to
evolve and, with their growing clout, command more timely releases. Until then,
pick this album up, enjoy it with your drug of choice, and go see them when they
come to your town.