BONE & JOINT CENTER - Star Super

Edition of 100 copies. "...The same cannot be said of Bone & Joint Centers Jackson Wingate and Sick Llana, members of Albanys legendary free-rock unit Burnt Hills, who here offer us their debut side as a guitar and xylophone duo and couldnt give a flying fuck about cultural currency or offending the tastes of those who define it. Theyre both around the fifty mark and Chas would definitely think they looked funny for it, at least in comparison to someone like Mick Jagger in his respectable skinny jeans and designer V-neck muscle tops. Theyre your weirdo next door neighbours - broad smiles, Guitar Hero pyjama pants, eyes like cig burns from endless bongloads, something just not white picket fence enough about them for the neighbourhood - its flamboyant, its just not the kind of flamboyant theyre looking for on American Idol. And, as such, they offer us something closer to a cultural archetype than anything contrived by the culture industry, EVER. Right here is what happens when the anti-authoritarian streak is allowed to develop, completely unbridled. Its as uniquely American as anything captured by John Lomax and its fucking amazing. It sounds like Jackson learned to play the guitar by watching Jimi Hendrix on TV with the sound off. His endless shredding is as intricate, technically dextrous, and free from error as anything performed by your average guitar God, only it pays zero attention to keys, modes, scales, notes even. Youd expect someone eschewing learned tradition to come off more like a Sonny Sharrock or maybe a Keiji Haino, but thats not really the case here. If Jacksons playing has to sound like anyone, then I guess it has most in common with J Mascis in that sustained weaving sense, but even thats an inadequate comparison. It always amazes me that, amidst the swamp of all those Burnt Hills records, Jacksons guitar cuts through like a razor, but its still a treat to hear it so clearly as the focal point of this raging twenty-minute showpiece for his utterly unique technique. Underpinning this playing is xylophonist Sick Llana, who takes the traditional role of percussionist and, while treating it with the same earnestness as a Rashied Ali or Mike Shrieve, appears to take the stance that rational thought should not be allowed in the slightest to pass from brain to hands in performance and, thus, completely inverts the role. The effect is roughly the same as what Jackson achieves on guitar - vibe is God - but its without the same deference to accuracy-of-strike. Theres no time, no rigidity, no patience for any of that. Just let your motor functions guide what happens and let them be guided by that intangible something called feel. Between the pair of them, theyve made a reflection-in-a-warped-mirror-then-photographed-with-a-warped-lens-then-viewed-with-a-wasps-eye rock record thats gonna appear in years to come as a time capsule from an era when there were still a few hedonistic freaks left to fly the flag of genuine, wilful and wholly contented oddness. So fuck relevance. This is performance." - Nick Mitchell, Golden Lab Records.