this review originally appeared in Thaumaturgy, a blog dedicated to new experimental and psychedelic music

May 19, 2005

DKG Sleep Trio, self-titled

The newest zone appearing on the big map of musical microclimates is the teenage wasteland of college-town Indiana, where an unlikely assortment of post-everything bands have group-identified as the Fuck Me Stupid Princess Mountain Recording Collective, which may be my favorite name for anything, ever. The first disc I got my hands on from these folks is a self-titled release from the DKG Sleep Trio, which contains six pieces of bad-trip improv assembled with a loose DIY basement aesthetic.

If forced to place them into a context, I'd say that the trio, at its most fundamental, is playing rock—although it's the grey, reptillian rock of Slint, Mick Turner, and the Dead C, more in love with the empty blasted landscape of amp hum and distorted crunch than with anything that resembles rhythm and blues. Although most of the untitled pieces here are dominated by this rangy, strung-out guitar work (contributed by Mike Dixon and Carlos Gonzales), they're rounded out with percussive spatter, cracked electronics, and wounded ululations that seem to have risen from the lower echelons of emo. (The album's vocal approach is maybe best exemplified by the second track, featuring an I'm-off-my-meds rant to a beloved fog machine ("Foggy")—a rant which goes from schizophrenic mumble to howling tantrum, with brief stops at all the various waystations inbetween.)

Occasionally the pieces establish a structure: the guitar and percussion establish temporarily residence around some pattern of scummed-up electronic arpeggiations, and all the stochastic noise suddenly seems like it's in place. More commonly, however, the elements cohere briefly and then dissolve again, giving the whole affair an air of junk-sick doom, which is almost certainly the aim.

Self-released by the Fuck Me Stupid Mountain Princess Recording Collective.