Ovis Aurum & Best Available Technology on the buttons, accumulating two decades of kinship with their combined excellence at sonic ruffage, together as BOA -
We were very pleasantly surprised to see their first proper combo 12" (that one's back in stock too btw, just sayin') since 2015's Seagrave release pop up a few weeks back, and it was even better to hear the news of this imminent combo LP from the two Portland based musicians -
so here it is, served up across 8 cuts via New York's Styles Upon Styles.
Each one of the tracks strikes thunderously, moves swiftly, hacking and chopping viciously at perceived rules of soundsystem music & experimental styles.
The influences - from BMB through to Godflesh and more 00's UK bassbin styles - are there to be found within the blueprint, but the glue in between is what makes it -
crunched drums, strangled melodies and off-kilter ambience call & respond to pulses of breakbeat, f-loads of sub bass and precise, but organic sound design.
We love it all, and it makes extra sense as a continuous listen, but take extra care when you tread near pieces of dynamite 'Mar Jaguar', 'Catachrome', 'Yavapai' and the rude swagger of '888' - you've been warned.
"Outer Gateways is the culmination of twenty years of friendship and countless years of anger, frustration, sadness, obsession, addiction, bad sleep, and poor mental health. The cycle of these feelings didn’t begin twenty years ago, and it won’t end in 2020, but the friendship began in the desert and won’t end this year, either, for two brothers - Gary Geiler and Kevin Palmer - who share concussions, floating head hauntings, bouts of self-deprecation and, most strongly, white hot anger towards those who bulldoze for a buck and a Black Friday piss-up. They are friends who make music to fight a failing future, not for an optimist’s sake, but to quiet their anxieties for a moment of sleep before the alarm clock drags the shit back into focus.
BOA is a brotherhood formed through almost classically cinematic settings: desert drives to pick up a small town’s Wire magazine; skating soundtracked by Public Enemy, Godflesh, Adrian Sherwood and No U Turn; copies of Burroughs, Ballard, Bradbury, and Borges traded between backwoods parties and band practices. A connection unharmed by circumstance and strengthened by time lays the groundwork for a creative, emotional exchange delivered in bass weight and Chronic forms.
Twenty years of the above (and way beyond) led to a release on Seagrave in 2015, before hunkering down to fine-tune their collaboration into the eight tracks contained within Outer Gateways. (The preceding 12”, SUS033, features material recorded after the completion of the album; Mosca’s remix pulls from sounds contained within the album.)
Kevin and Gary - who produce as Best Available Technology and Ovis Aurum, respectively - cast sonics to curse oil barons with rapid dick decay. Sound-making stops time as it silences the anger, focusing fatherly / brotherly frustrations towards those who hate unconditionally, who destroy without compassion, who desecrate for their own sakes and spit upon our futures. A tool to fight eco-anxiety and a map to chart the next twenty years, Outer Gateways is sonics proper operated like heavy machinery."
... You heard!
Ltd edition of 100, housed in gold screenprinted jackets.
TRACKLIST:
1. CMirror
2. Hierarchies
3. Mar Jaguar
4. Catachrome
5. Yavapai
6. Inefficient Signals 2
7. Ungarland
8. 888
Mar Jaguar
Catachrome
Yavapai
888
