Long running NYC experimental duo White Out bring these two up and comers Jim O’Rourke and Thurston Moore onto the stage at the Tonic and bash out two sets of long free playing. White Out sticks to the bare bones of drums, synth and autoharp while O’Rourke grabs hold of a synth and if I have to tell you what Moore is playing, you’ve got larger problems than a website can solve.

First disc “Fear Of Fear (Of Fear)” does not assault in the way you think it might. It’s a certain kind of layered chaos that does not rely on feedback’d violence to relay it’s message. With the warm tones of the two synths, the excellent manipulation of sounds that go from R2D2 squalls to soft reeds, the disc starts off sounding like the Arkestra on a particularly bent night. After about twelve minutes, Moore’s guitar really starts to dominate but his playing is still spare.

Second disc “The Eyes The Mouth” has more of a woozy feel to it. The sway of interactions, the low frequencies started to make me feel a little bow legged. The set turns to something a little jazzy after a minimal beginning and then diverge entirely into another Moore dominated leading, this time sounding more akin to his Sonic Youth work.

The only complaint I have is that the sets tend to sound kind of similar in their approach. I don’t think it was structured this way, but they wind up coming off like mirrors of each other. Maybe that is less obvious if you give some space to when you listen to the two discs instead of back to back like I did, but overall this is a pretty exciting and enjoyable listen. 7/10 -- Andrew Murdock Livingston (11 November, 2009)