Brent Lewis Ensemble - Three Christs Of Ypsilanti

As part of the 25th anniversary of the Butte County Free Music Society,Three Christs of Ypsilanti follows Induced Musical Spasticity 4xLP (BUFMS,2009) and roughly coincides with The Bren t Lewiis Ensemble s At the North Pole, Easter Day, 1982 (upcoming on What The...?) and, if the mastertapes rescue succeeds, the soundtrack to Esther s Brother Is Missing by MariaEstevez. Recording and performing primarily in the mid- to late 1980s, withsporadic efforts in the early 1990s, this barely organized enclave based inrural Northern California ingests and disgorges outsider free music à la Smegma and other bent LAFMS trippers, the UK s A Band, 5 Starcle Men,and the sort of visionaries currently promoted by labels such as ChocolateMonk, Destijl, and Ultra Eczema. Members of the Bren t Lewiis Ensemble later migrated to Vomit Launch, Glands of External Secretion, The Idiot,Needles, Serious Prblmz, and Bananafish magazine.Each side of Three Christs of Ypsilanti is dominated by tracks whose lengths meander into double digits. On Side A, Take It Out and Kill It isa murky glance at mortification via caninicide, with its ancillary fleas, cockroaches,and especially worms. This is the only large group recording on thealbum, and as such whirls around in conflicting directions in a manner thatone backwater critic long ago described as schizophrenic muzak. A completely different version of this track was previously released on the MaggieIs a Dot cassette in 1984.On Side B, Dark Surprise, a 1986 recording from the crossroads of DIYautism and darkened psychedelia, is previously unreleased (the first playbackof the master tape didn t happen until 2008). In contrast to the group susual embrace of any and all kitchen sinks at hand, the recording was madesolely with electric guitars, voice, and prerecorded audio frottage.Book-ending both sides are shorter tracks (average length: two minutes);these four excerpts from an after-hours, no-audience guerilla action were recorded in a multistory, split-level university student union, using hurledcafeteria cutlery, defective boomboxes and answering machines blaring pre-recorded tape, the public piano, and a variety of unidentified flailing objects.All were previously released on the Mary Jane cassette in 1983. [As] secretive as a posse ve Masons bidding in a goat auction a weird,be fuddlin storm comin outta the night tryin to charm you into the muddyarms of the undertow. Roland Woodbe, Siltblog

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