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 CARYA
AMARA
Vestigial Digital
2001
Earthrid
57:05
The project - Carya Amara is, so I am reliably (?) informed, bitternut
hickory by another name - is based around the University of Birmingham
(UK West Midlands, not Alabama). I spent a youthful year there myself
once, and well...we all mistakes, most of mine being made in the Old Varsity
Tavern, which will no doubt mean something to Earthrid boss Kevin Busby,
even if it doesn't to anybody else. Earthrid/Carya Amara are pretty right
on in a sort of hey-kids-so-what-about-the planet? sort of way, something
which - having spent most of the weekend with a foul headache and an upset
stomach due to forgetting to rinse the pesticide off my supermarket-bought
green peppers Friday night - I find less annoying than I used to. OK,
so worthy exercises in beard-tugging and tree-hugging are not quite my
thing, in fact I always agreed with Malcolm McLaren's comment to Helen
of Troy in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle: "Helen. Never trust a hippy".
That said, Vestigial Digital, is better than that. The first two
tracks 'Nietzsche is Dead' and 'Job's Torturer' are particularly appealing,
the latter pitching the agonised wails of the undead against a satisfying
cacophony of nails-down-the-blackboard screech and bubbling windy gush.
The concluding 'Wind versus Windscale' is also impressive, the radioactive
jabber of 'On the Beach' sandwiched between the eerie samples of 'Blowy
Day' and the surreal clang that is 'The Tao of Power'. A twenty-first
century concept album, and one well worth listening to. The juxtaposition
of distorted jangling voices and smooth electronic bluster is both intriguing
and challenging. The label description "aggressive ambient" gets it about
right.
STEWART GOTT - 4 March 2002
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