Ben Nash - Alcatraz Dialect

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4...according to our Brett on Thu 13 Nov, 2008.

Ben Nash has got this new kind of mini album thing I suppose. Alcatraz Dialect is a concept album about how people in prison communicate through bumming, a subject sadly left untouched by avant-garde instrumental music-makers from Sheffield until now. Actually I'm just being silly, it's probably not about anything other than being all good and interesting to ears that are willing to give it a crack. The title track reminds me a little of the build up to the crescendo's you get in Godspeed You Black Emperor tracks in the subtle atmospherics but particularly in the chiming, mournful guitar sound.. It's also quite like the more recent Earth stuff but pushed in a spookier direction.. It really paints pictures in your mind - abandoned landscapes, looming storm clouds and all that. The second track (which also clears the ten minute mark) brightens things right up with layered Indian-sounding guitar offering little droplets of sun after the beams of rain. Whoa, check that fucking poetry out. A release so good it'll make a Byron out of anyone!

Brand new CDR on Ben's own ROK label... first release on the label in a few months actually... Title track Alcatraz Dialect in a meandering drone piece with echoing thunder like clatter in the background for the first few minutes, four minutes in the chimes and guitar begin, sounding like some western flick from years ago. This is the sound of wandering through the deserts with no one but yourself. Samaya is a far more psychedelic dream like offering, hazy layers of tones washing over one another, with some interlaced far away guitar plucks, ending an almost refective repetitive plucking. Limited to 96 hand numbered copies.

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