By Paul Acquaro
A found box of 10 minute cassette tapes inspired guitarist Ross Hammond to create the extremely limited release ‘Shiner‘. Recorded with drummer Jon Bafus, the two five minute tracks serve as a succinct teaser of Hammond’s earth-toned ouvre.
Side A features ‘Tones for Roscoe Mitchell’, finds the duo spinning some gritty and kinetic melodies. The rapid elliptical lines repeat like possessed pamphleteers speaking in tongues in the subway station (I haven’t seen these folks in the NYC subways for a while though, just a fading memory I guess). This track is a real highlight, and hopefully may re-emerge on a full length release sometime – when it fades out at the five minute mark it still seems to be building tension. When all too soon auto-reverse kicks in, side B finds Hammond shifting around big slabs of sound with the help of Bafus. “For the Defenders of Middle Earth” can be categorized in the post-rock / Crazy Horse section of your growing Hammond collection.
Only 75 of these buggers out there – see here for more info
