Mountaain / Rampart

Right when you think you have a good grasp on the what have you of south of the Ohio River comes a CDR to totally destroy your notion of the Lexington scene. Here is a compilation full of Lexington groups, but while you think you might see the names involved with that whole Hair Police/Cadaver In Drag/Warmer Milks related scene you will have a hard time finding more familiar names than you can count on one hand. Even with the few groups you might know (Eyes & Arms of Smoke, Ara, Three Legged Race, Attempt, and Irene Moon) you will have just as hard of a time picking them out from the 35 tracks. In fact, you will have a hard time differentiating the first track from the second, or the third, fourth, and so on. Each track sounds similar enough to the last to keep you thinking you might be listening to the same band again. Most likely this is because of the production skills of one, Ed Sunspot. You may not be familiar with Ed Sunspot and neither am I cause one doesn't know if he actually exists or if that is just a moniker of someone else. This compilation leaves you with many questions. First off, what or where is the Resonant Hole. Not only is this the name of the compilation but also the location in which all things were recorded. With the given name you can imagine what this might sound like and your probably right. Each track sounds as if it was recorded in a deep, dark cave with every sound being echoed throughout the deep "resonant hole " or more likely through a Space Echo.

The second question to be asked of this compilation is who the hell are all of these bands and where did they come from. Well, considering that this was put out by Rampart and Mountaain you can guess that Rampart's Trevor Tremaine and Mountaain's Robert Beatty probably have a big hand in a lot of these projects. Also, a big clue is the fact that many of the tracks include Beatty's synth action or Tremaine's drum beatings or smooth vocals. Among that you will also hear an array of broken acoustic guitars, tinkly xylophones, thrift store keyboards, and distant moans all wrapped up in plenty of lo-fi fuzzy echo that is somewhere between some of the newer echo heavy lo-fi groups on Siltbreeze like US Girls and Factums and a mix of early industrial collages and LAFMS style weirdness.

Every one of these tracks was recorded in April and May of this year but sounds as if they could have been recorded 30 years ago or maybe even 30 years from now. Eyes and Arms of Smoke do what may be the first sci-fi angst song "I Don't Want To Go To the Moon," which features Robert Beatty's sci-fi synth blasts, Sara O' Keefe doing some Yoko vocals in space, and Trevor Tremaine's moon hating demands of "I don't want to go to the moon, There's nothing there, You can't breath the air!" Very few songs on "Resonant Hole" include drums but the ones that day you can almost surely attribute to Trevor Tremaine such as "No Energy” by The Preterite, which sounds like a blown out recording from some late 60's prog-pysch punks. Tremaine also does a very unique soulful cover of Sonic Youth's "Confusion Is Sex" that almost sounds like a stripped down, blown out, version done by Steely Dan. The Guilty Feelings "We Will Fail" is definitely the most straightforward song of all with just an acoustic guitar, and guy and girl singing over top with a little echo for good measure, sounding like something from an early K records cassette release. Dry Sunset's "Three Then Two" is a pretty minimal track featuring a hyper echoey keyboard and girl singing along to a thumping bass. Lexington newbee Street Gnar submits "Grayson Roadz" which is a full on synth washing with echoing tones flowing in and out and delayed clacking throughout. If your hip to the Lexington scene you maybe also recognize some other names that get around such as Flower Man (Chris Bush from Caboladies), Kraken Fury, and Walter Carson. With 35 tracks from more than 30 different groups you will get something different and unique every time but unlike most comps that suffer from bad flow or inconsistant qualities this comp succeeds in being one of the most interesting comps I have heard in a long time just for the fact that the quality is all the same and the flow is easy going due to the similar quality and the somehow similar feel throughout this comp. Definitely my favorite compilation so far this year! 9/10 -- Jon Lorenz (23 June, 2009)