Twelve Nights In The Triangle

Tour poster - Matt Fishbeck.
Collage image - Erik Bluhm.

Aquarius Reviews Cryptic Cross

"We're huge fans of guitarist Matt Baldwin, we are so smitten by his psychedelic kraut-guitar drift, beholden to Fripp and Riley and Reich and Rother but also the Appalachia of Fahey and Kottke. So when he brought in this new disc on Psychic Arts, that's pretty much what we were expecting, although we did think Cryptic Cross was an odd name for some dreamy droney minimal guitar music, so we threw it on and pretty much knew we were in for something completely different. The opening intro is a super lo-fi dirge, all crumbling guitar buzz, sped up voices, tape malfunction, and then suddenly "Don't Chew Worry" kicks in, and we're in full on lo-fi new wave dirge metal territory. At least that's the best way we can describe it. Super murky and lo-fi, buzzy metallic riffage, but strange almost outsider cold wave vocals, crooned, sort of spoken, insane lyrics, the guitar and vocal melodies locked tight, making everything sound sing songy, and then when the vocalist slips into a falsetto, and the guitar shreddery begins, we're in total whathefuck heaven. We say this once in a while, but again, this totally sounds like something you might discover via Brian Turner's show on WFMU, psychedelic, metallic, but with a twisted knuckledragging post punk / lo-fi sludge vibe. Fucking weird, but totally bafflingly genius. Not sure where they're from, or what their deal is, but what we do know is that we have been jamming this nonstop! Fucked up and heavy, warped and drug addled, this is some crazy, kick ass shit!

LIMITED TO 50 COPIES! Each one hand numbered, and housed in a silkscreened origami style cd sleeve."

Available thru Aquarius Records:

http://www.aquariusrecords.org/

Year of The Dog Revisited

Aquarius now also has more copies of Year of The Dog, a CDr that Nico Georis and I put out last summer. Their review: 

"After falling so deeply in love with Matt Baldwin's recent cd-r release, Imaginary Psychology, earlier this year, we knew that this bay area guitar wizard had really come into his own, exploring exciting new terrain in reaching epic psychedelic bliss.
This new outing finds Baldwin collaborating with multi-instrumentalist Nico Georis, as they create two long form pieces that explore a more textured and layered sort of kosmische drift. The first track, "Year Of The Dog", finds Baldwin employing guitar, guitar-synth, as well as loops and delay, while Georis contributes clavinet, Wurlitzer piano, percussion, a Prophet 600, and a MicroKorg to create a meditative movement that's like some pulsating dreamscape conjured up by Robert Fripp, Michael Rother, Ash Ra Tempel, Manuel Gottsching, and/or John Cale. It taps into a sound that folks like Mark McGuire/Emeralds, White Rainbow, Bitchin Bajas, and Arp have been exploring, but with a much more organic and warm approach.
"Juan Carlos" is the other massive track here, an improv psych-jam, that features Juan Carlos Morales Tablada on congas and percussion. It starts with a slow build that immediately entrances as its sounds are both so connected to the earth, yet do such an amazing job of taking you to another dimension. In some ways the vibe makes us think of another one of our favorite cd-r releases from this year, Eat The Earth, by fellow San Francisco psych improv masters 3 Leafs.
Hand numbered and limited to 50 copies, this one is a no brainer. Don't miss out!"

The only update is that the hand-numbered edition has sold out. These new copies are not numbered.

$7.98 at Aquarius Records:

http://www.aquariusrecords.org

Show / Review

Tonight:

Communion

Entrance (solo)
Tim Cohen (solo)
Matt Baldwin
Hot Lunch
Ready Steady

At Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco. Doors at 7:30pm.
$10 adv / $12 at the door.

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I just dropped off more copies of Imaginary Psychology at Aquarius Records. Here is the review they wrote of it last year:

"Man, Matt Baldwin just seems to get better and better, taking his already wonderful celestial spaced out guitar playing and constantly pushing his sound further and further out. This super limited self released outing finds Baldwin positioning one short track inbetween two epic 15 minute sprawls which evoke the spirit of Robert Fripp playing a Terry Riley composition or Michael Rother and Steve Reich teaming up for some hypnotic psychedelic kraut guitar drift. Exploring cosmic guitar explorations similar to folks like Mark McGuire and Phil Manley, this is such a wonderful record of truly tripped out and densely dreamy solo guitar. We could go on and on about how much we love this, but considering these are the very last copies left of this cd-r we should probably just say act super fast as we only have ten of these left!"

Order your copy here:

http://www.aquariusrecords.org

Cryptic Cross

 In The Garden Waits A Stranger Full of Beauty

 Tear Down Closet Door And Paint It

 Three Ghosts

Stick
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Copies of the Cryptic Cross EP are now at Aquarius awaiting review and listing. In the meantime, you can listen to it at the Psychic Arts site:

http://psychicarts.bandcamp.com/album/cryptic-cross

Wake up metal heads, this is for real.

Art by Stick Boy (Sean Lyons).