Upgrade & Afterlife
Upgrade & Afterlife is the third album by Gastr del Sol.
Track listing
| Title | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | A. | Our Exquisite Replica of "Eternity" | 8:26 |
| 2. | B1. | Rebecca Sylvester | 3:53 |
| 3. | B2. | The Sea Incertain | 6:12 |
| 4. | C1. | Hello Spiral | 10:40 |
| 5. | C2. | The Relay | 5:49 |
| 6. | D1. | Crappie Tactics | 1:48 |
| 7. | D2. | Dry Bones in the Valley | 12:27 |
Personnel
Reviews
The Sound Projector
1997[1]
Wonderful stuff this - though it wasn't an immediate grabber, I now deem it a highly crafted recording exhibiting consummate studio skill, very listenable, and a pleasingly deft combination of the story (songs) with the abstract (instrumentals). Jim O'Rourke is one half of this duo, which is why I decided to investigate - on the strength of his work with Faust. People can sometimes spout nonsense about 'imaginary movie soundtracks'. More apposite to a record like this is the phrase 'Movie for your Ears', coined by Frank Zappa for his 1969 LP Hot Rats. Zappa's proposal for making records this way should have been followed by more musicians, I feel. (Notwithstanding the 'Cinema of the Ear' series of music concrète minidiscs issued by Metam Kine in France; O'Rourke did one called Rules of Reduction, MKCD 009.) This Gastr record seems to having a shot at it. More than simply suggesting suitable cinematic images to accompany itself, it (like Hot Rats) pays close attention to light and shade, tonal colour balance, textures, and a highly developed feel for the linear progression of the whole recording - it's edited and ordered like a cinematic event, not just a loose affiliation of episodes (which isn't to say it's like a 1970s concept album in any way!). This is helped by the brilliant move of playing a John Fahey composition as the final track, played with loving care by O'Rourke and overlaid with lusciously managed sounds including the great Tony Conrad playing a slightly more approachable version of his minimal violin drones. Elsewhere the bizarre fragmentary songs delivered with a hesitant breathy vocal over a close-miked acoustic classical guitar evoke The Red Krayola. And the first track starts with a tasty chandelier-shattering organ chord, which edits into a sample of that brilliant melancholy trumpet solo from The Incredible Shrinking Man. This CD is undeniably precious and fragile, but so what?