SLINGER / ACCELERA DECK – (21:15) / Fire Maps

(split CD, Skylab)

There is some chaos and turmoil around this release, resulting in enigma and bedazzlement. And that is true for the music as for the release facts. But lets try to digest one after the other. Disclaimer: maybe it is just me not getting through all the information I am being fed and then frying my brains on what is left, therefore unable to get to the easy conclusion that is hidden beneath all this somewhere. At this point in time, late at night, headphones blasting with this crazy noise, eyesight getting blurred and knowing I will have to get up early again tomorrow (or is it today) to get some work done before the year is finally over and everything is to late, well, I can’t be bothered right now. Any suggestions and corrections are welcome. Just don’t send them to me, because I am afraid they would only add to my irritation.

Skylab record has a tentative series of releases where two artists get together to either collaborate or at least split a full CD. This series is called “The future of music” by the way, which in my opinion, is taking it a little too fast and too big, but if it adds to the momentum and the following craziness, so be it. Accelera Deck, as should be well known now, is Chris Jeely’s brainchild (Scarcelight records, Your favourite horse, etc.). He is responsible for tracks 2 to 10 on this CD, which were, as far as I can tell, recorded at a time, when Accelera Deck was still a one-person outfit. I am already looking forward to the new album “a landslide of stars”, where drummer Zach Evans has been invited to sit in as a new and full member of the band. Jeely already recorded his off the usual tracks Skulllike-album with Evans, where he ventured forth into the realms of lo-fi-pop with a Sixties feeling. If you have heard Accelera Deck, I know you are interested now. Other than that, regarding the personell, are you still with me? Then hang on: Slinger has also seen some contribution by Chris Jeely as well as released on Scarcelight and I am not sure as to the status of the membership of that project. Who the fuck cares? Chris Jeely is a great guy, very productive, able to deliver noise of all kinds, from solar blasts of megatonnage of white noise lasting over three quarters of an hour to gentle folk pickings on an acoustic guitar. Anybody so deep into sound as if it was a material you could dive into, who cares about stuff like that. Just let me know, that’s all.

Slinger is a very interesting thing, because it – as far as I can hear or manage to retrieve from the internet – of a drummer hyperpolating crazy stuff or whirling around his kit in various ways, while a second person feeds the sounds into a computer and does crazy stuff with it. I know that sounds all a little bit like teenage blow out right here, but first of all that wouldn’t be so bad. Second, on its single massive track (aptly called 21:15) they go from drumming to pure noise to digital silence to improvised to beeps and bleeps and back again, and I am sure I forgot to mention some more detours on here. This track alone would be a revelation. Have you ever heard drumkit sounding as if tiny little gnomes waddled through your room and half a second later a gigantic chainsaw tries to cut right through the walls and floors around you? I rest my case.

The nine tracks by Accelera Deck are shorter (with one exception ranging between thirty seconds and five minutes) and as diverse. Soundsources could be anything here. I guess it is guitars, because with the Accelera Deck moniker Jeely usually uses guitars, but after hearing what has been done the drums right before, I am not so sure anymore. There are ghostly and eerie tones, some noise, some extraterrestrial craziness and some distorted minds, but all drenched with the almost magical feeling for noise that I have learned to find in all of Jeelys releases (wether his own or on his label). In between you will also hear the sounds of a guitar the way everybody knows it. That’s right: strummed. And a few million other ways as well, most of them able to stop almost any party within 30 seconds. Others booming on for some more time. Lots to explore if you approach with careful ears.

Out there, there are quite a number ov very dedicated, original artists working and exploring their unique vision with dedication and a lot of energy – and most of what they do goes unjustly unrecognized. To me, one of the great pleasures in life is to stumble upon such a personality (or be hit on as it is at times) and then watch this vision unfold with every new release or track I get to here. And the least I can do here in my little hole is to tell you all about them and urge you to check them out yourselfs. Back in the days, when Cracked was just a tiny little, copied zine running on 400 pieces per number, the names would have been Brian Ruryk, Skullflower or Loren MazzaCane Connors, to name three that also use guitars centrally, and if one in three got any kind of recognition in the years to come, it was a great thing. Chris Jeely is one of them. I hope some day he’ll be the one. (And then you’ll know where you read it first …)