| Artist: Nels Cline & Devin Sarno |
| Title: "Buried On Bunker Hill" |
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Catalog #: GF028 |
| Series: I * |
| Total Time: 55'28" |
| Release Date: January 6, 2004 |
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Buried On Bunker Hill
01: Swinging London
02: Hydrofoil
03: A Knot In The Wrist
04: Only Peace
* Out of the 30 titles that I've released, there have been 2 or 3 that I probably put in the wrong Series. Some of this is due to the fact that the tracks vary so greatly. In the case of Buried on Bunker Hill, I completely missed the mark. With the exception of track 4, this one fits squarely in the Series II category. Before anyone out there starts talking shit because this is in no way a Series I release, I wanted to get the jump on you and fess up to the fact that I screwed up on this one. I'm not losing my mind (which could be questionable) nor is my hearing failing me. So, I suggest you turn the volume down so that I'm right. Erik Hoffman - Founder, President and C.E.O. of Ground Fault Recordings.
NELS CLINE + DEVIN SARNO
Nels Cline (guitarist of The Nels Cline Singers, Scarnella, Mike Watt, + duet partner with Thurston Moore, Zeena Parkins, Gregg Bendian, Vinny Golia, etc.) & Devin Sarno (the solo bassist behind CRIB & founding member of the seminal L.A. art-prog band Waldo The Dog Faced Boy) began experimenting together in a live concert context in 1994, fueled by a mutual appreciation for "on-the-spot" sonic sculpting. The resulting sounds have ranged from restrained dynamics to unrelenting sonic firestorms and all points in between.
Previous releases from the duo include a limited edition, vinyl-only 12" ("Rise Pumpkin Rise") on the indie Volvolo Records and their debut, critically acclaimed full length CD: "Edible Flowers" (WIN Records) released in 1998.
Their latest offering "Buried on Bunker Hill" (Ground Fault Recordings) is the duo's first recorded output in over 5 years & marks the next step forward in their sonic collab. Utilizing studio multi-tracking for the first time, the sounds that make up "Bunker Hill" are decidedly more textured and complex than any of the duo's previous (primarily live) offerings.
With comparisons as divergent as Harry Partch & Pink Floyd, Cline + Sarno have clearly carved out their own unique musical niche.
- "It's impossible to do this record justice in a review, it should just be heard. I've never heard of these two guys and here is a really great record of experimental ambient, falling somewhere near Mandible Chatter, Final and Ruhr Hunter. It just goes to show that Ground Fault, the label here, is really only interested in putting out the best sounds they can find. The first piece, 'Swinging London', is a fearless nineteen minutes of elegant changes from panoramic dream-textures and anthemic ambient to building washes of sonic strength and exhuberant release. Guitar sheers off the edges, makes coiled nests inside of a thick wall of drone, certainly vertical sounding, high, climbing, towering into the clouds. But you're there, flying up the grand sides, never finding the end, waves of golden sound crashing over you, the eventual end not as important as your movement along this perfect monolith. In stark contrast, the second five-minute track, 'Hydrofoil', is a coy, introspective groaning chamber, periodic pings of chord trilling in the darkness, winds moving through the center. I could go on, describing each track like this, but then we'd have a ridiculously long review here. These guys use all the right tools for the job: guitar, autoharp, electric bass, drones, loops, turning out a very precise, unavoidable vision of sonic beauty. Excellent. Can't recommend this too much. " - Manifold Records
- "Absolutely brilliant improvised soundscaping from guitar hero Nels Cline and bassist Devin Sarno. Glorious abstraction and drone, though punctuated with occasional crests of colour. (*****)"--City of Sound (UK)
It’s so smooth. So crystalline and reflective. Staring into its glistening, mirror surface, it’s easy to get lost. Time loses meaning. The drone. Endless. Timeless. Seconds stretching out into long endlessly pretty vistas of liquid, tension-free syrup, an occasional guitar note ringing out solitary and evocative in the dim grey fog, a beacon, a brief pinprick of light calling you out further and further, never coming any closer, always its siren call heard from a distance within the calming womb-like surrounding pall of the drone. It’s warm and deep, steady, reassuring, and that meandering guitar weaves a path through the dense waters like a boat on a still lake; each note’s rippling wake is glimpsed for only a second before the surface smoothes over again.
Indeed, the pairing of improv powerhouse guitarist Nels Cline with bassist Devin Sarno is unexpectedly lush, melodic, and tranquil for much of its length, even though that tranquility often has a darker element. And even though the album opens with the 18-minute “Swinging London,” which quickly becomes anything but tranquil. The track builds a meaty drone filled with rumbling feedback and soloing from Cline’s guitar. Cline veers a bit towards pointless wankery at first, but as he slathers distortion onto his notes and approaches the lower register of his collaborator, his contributions begin to make more sense within the piece. At close to the ten-minute mark, Cline engages in an extended session of feedback-drenched soloing, his guitar adding energy and volume to the gritty rolling waves of the electronics (both men are responsible for effects, so other than Cline’s guitar, not much is recognizable here).
The much briefer “Hydrofoil” is more subdued, with squirts of processed guitar and bass reverberating back and forth in a spacious atmosphere that’s quickly filled with the after-echoes of the sounds. “A Knot in the Wrist” returns to the darker, feedback-pocked lake of the opening track, with just as compelling results. Cline’s ragged soloing again becomes the dominant feature after a near-ambient introduction, his cascading licks taking on a sense of inevitability as the track steamrolls into a stormy sea only to once more calm itself towards the end, with traces of melody and ambience once again drifting beneath the feedback stormclouds left hovering in the air by Cline.
It’s only on the last track, appropriately dubbed “Only Peace,” that the duo simply allows their quieter tendencies to take hold for the full ten minutes. Cline’s plaintive guitar murmurs gently over a subdued wash of electronics and gently lapping bass drones; each note has the deliberation and lonely quality of an Ennio Morricone score. It’s a beautiful, transcendent track, the best on the disc, and as good as the rest of this music is, one can’t help but wish that the rest of the album had the same simplicity and emotional depth as this one ten-minute piece does. Where the rest of the album impresses with walloping waves of feedback and dexterity on the strings -- all enjoyable and exciting and with plenty to like -- this track is stripped down and full of genuine feeling, which is why it lasts far longer after every other memory from this record has faded back into the fog from which it first emerged. - Reviewed by: Ed Howard - Stylus
- "I came to Nels Cline's work by way of the Geraldine Fibbers and I had never heard any of Devin Sarno before, but I was expecting "Buried on Bunker Hill" to be something of a free-jazz style improvised guitar and bass workout. What I got instead was a thick, syrupy collection of drones and crackles and ebbing waves of distortion that is equal parts menacing dark noise and plaintive restrained ambience. If Subharmonic were still issuing their duet series that featured solo guitarists (Justin Broaderick, Page Hamilton, Thurston Moore, etc.) let loose for a side of a record to make any and all amount of noise they wished with their axe of choice, Buried on Bunker Hill would be a crowning achievement to a novel and intentionally limited approach. Where layered guitar and bass improvisational noise often fails me is in its creators' lack of ability to move from one point to another and then another with enough momentum as to seem organic and evolving. Cline and Sarno thankfully don't have that problem here, as they consistently build up to crests of deep, haunting noise and then flow back down to quiet moments that only suggest the power lurking underneath their arrangements. There's relatively little resembling the traditional timbres of the instruments used to make these songs, but when the recognizable guitar phrases surface as on "Only Peace," the atmosphere fades a bit to the background to give the stringed voices a chance to shine. Interestingly, Ground Fault founder Erik Hoffman was himself not sure of how this record could be classified based on his self-imposed series system (I=quiet, II=medium, III=loud) and initially released it as a part of the 'quiet' series. It is frequently quiet and loud and somewher in between so Hoffman's later admission that the record is more of a 'medium' probably makes the most sense. Buried on Bunker Hill is diverse but focused; it's dark but often tranquil and it winds up as the kind of record you can listen to quietly if you want to have some distracting noise in the background, or that you can listen to at full volume if you want to tremble before the monolithic force of echoing sounds crashing over you." -- Brainwashed
"Cold and enigmatic textures like a fog rolling in at the cusp of a shadow, so goes the opening track, "Swinging London." Big sound from a duo that paints pictures contorted between the worlds of Pink Floyd and High Rise (I am sure they could also be likely compared to contemporaries E.A.R. or Godspeed! You Black Emperor) - in other words, monster guitars. This is the Godzilla-like younger brother mutation of these references, however. Big bass blur with a cobra-like slither and a sonic drone core. From wall of noise to distinctive sad distortions Buried on Bunker Hill (hey, that's my old neighborhood guys!) is a pure atmospheric outing, almost in the classic sense of how noise gets developed in various segments. The final "Only Peace" is the pale ambient, unpredictable one in the batch, but makes a great escape. There's a lot of revving here from a duo who have been playing live and experimenting since '94. Fan the flames!"-- Igloo Magazine
"Nels Cline and Devin Sarno are two very prolific men, Cline being in a number of bands and duets (notably with Thurston Moore), and Sarno having created much solo work with CRIB and was a founder of Waldo the Dog Faced Boy. However, I only knew this AFTER I had gotten this and after a listen I was really thinking to myself, who the hell are these guys?! This is by far one of the most impressive releases I have heard from the Ground Fault camp thus far, and probably one of the most seemless as well. Sounding to me like a combination of guitar trickery and effects processing, this is a hugely compelling ambient release that reminds me of acts like Rapoon or Final. The four tracks here are all long and highly involved using elements of ambience, low end rumblings that seem to be derived from feedback sources and the ever present guitar and bass. Starting off is a very spacy nineteen minute track of loud, forward drone with quiet, clean tone guitar elements that give this a distorted sense of melody and really adds to the already spaced out rock feel this has hanging too it. The second track is a lot more low end drone oriented, though the bizarre alien parody of a tune gives it that spacey feel of the previous track. Though only a short piece (less than 6 minutes) this is still very impressive, and the third track, 'A Knot in the Wrist', isnt about to let us down either. Another massive track, this has a more celestial feel than the rest being a lot less foreward and having a quieter drone element and some immense walls of static that come and go, im assuming from the guitar. Though not as outright impressive as the first two tracks this is still a colossal listening experience, an aural trip into space and time. And then the final journey arrives, and this truely feels like the final ascent. Its the quietest of the four tracks and has a lot more of a straight out ambient feel to it, a low, synth like drone carrying the ethereal melodic qualities along like a boatman on a sea of sonic waves. This is one of the most enjoyable releases so far on Ground Fault and one that I can heartily recommend to anyone who likes ambient, space rock or just soothing yet involved listening. Good work! -- Catdam.com
- "This new release from AQ fave avant-guitarist Mr. Nels Cline sees him teamed up with his old compatriot Devin Sarno, the avant-bassist who records solo under the name Crib. An exploration in ambient, instrumental, percussion-free postrock, Buried On Bunker Hill is labeled as being part of the Ground Fault label's Series I, which supposedly means "quiet" experimental music as opposed to loud and noisy experimental music but hey, a lot of that has to do with where you set the volume knob on your stereo! So don't get the idea that these abstract, presumably improvised guitar/bass duets are in any way tame, though they are quite pretty, and yes, sometimes quiet, at which points you'll recall for a moment that Nels is supposed to be a jazz guitarist. But then the volume swells to room-filling heights... These four tracks (totalling 55 minutes) are gorgeous, detailed drone works, soothing but active and dynamic. If this is 'experimental music', the experiment in question was undoubtedly a success. Recommended." - Aquarius Records
- "The duo tends to generate a drone of sorts, often propelled by an amorphously throbbing bass (that, on "a knot in the wind", reminded me a lot of Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun") over which Cline rips piercing lines that, even as they merge with the general ambience, sometimes betray a whiff of fusion pyrotechnics. The pieces are pleasant without having much to chew on or think about. The closing track, "only peace", broods attractively with an in and out respiratory feeling." Biran Olewnik - Bagatellen
- Guitarist NELS CLINE and bassist DEVIN SARNO have been playing together for almost 10 years, and this is their first multitrack recording (their past collaborations have been live). With a focus on improvisation and texture, Buried on Bunker Hill rumbles thick, low and foggy, as Cline's detuned and bent guitar mechanics gravitate, distort, meander and hover. For fans of Labradford, Flying Saucer Attack, and the like. Easily the best recording by a duo with chemistry to burn.
- "...a transcendent outpouring of angelic noise." -- LA Weekly
Selected press quotes
"A duo that mingles avant-garde jazz and rock in equal parts, guitarist Nels Cline & bassist Devin Sarno first jammed together in 1994. "Edible Flowers," culled from both live and studio recordings made throughout 1998, begs comparisons that range from Harry Partch to Pink Floyd, but with Cline's explosive guitar playing and Sarno's innovative bass work, it's a record not to be missed." --CMJ
"[Cline & Sarno] are veterans of the post-Sonic Youth era of noise bands and both bring an expert understanding of improvisation and texture. Sarno's bass produces a foundation rumble as thick as a low-hanging fog where Cline's multiplicity of detuned and bent guitar mechanics can wander. 'Leave Be,' a 17-minute drone, is an ambient-guitar fan's dream (think Labradford meets Flying Saucer Attack) while 'Forgive' is as delicate as falling snow, the song shimmers with melodic hues. This is far and away some of the best recording we've heard from Sarno and Cline, mostly captured at live and improvised shows, the chemistry they display is felt in the weight of these songs." --XLR8R/Freeform Feature
"Whatever your expectations of how an electric bass and guitar duo might sound, Nels Cline and Devin Sarno will confound them. Both players eschew gratuitous displays of technique; they're more concerned with arranging cool sounds than with letting us know how many notes and chords they can play. Both players gravitate towards distortion and such highly amplified sonic extremities that an unprepared listener might not even be able to identify their instruments when confronted with the huge, hovering soundscapes on Edible Flowers. Over the course of eleven minutes "The Moon Is Your Moon" sounds like a symphony for jet engines, a reversed tape of free-falling dive-bombers, and a demon choking as he gargles a particularly nasty hangover cure. "Forgive" occupies another zone, one where delicately picked patterns and jagged fuzz-tones drizzle over throbbing low-end sonic beams. Sarno and Cline both play in rock bands; they know the value of thoughtful organization and incorporate it into their sprawling, endlessly evolving creations, thus ensuring that you'll return to them after their novelty has worn off." --Inkblot
