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Rothko
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Description: | USED Ltd 7" on Too Pure, EX/EX |
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| Format: | 7" (vinyl) | |
| Condition: | Used | |
| Genre(s): | Experimental / Abstract | |
| Label: | Too Pure | |
| Price: |
£2.49
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| Availability: | Sold out / currently unavailable. Sorry! |
...according to our Phil on 14 January 2007.
In an age of CD players crammed into every nook of our lives and hard drives glutted with mp3 files, the 7" has become an antiquated curiosity. For Rothko, however, 'Red Cells' isn't a throwaway in quaint, analog packaging. The release marks an end to the band's line-up of three bass guitars stirring up faint, ghostly vortices of scorched melodies and reverberating stillness.
Future Rothko excursions will feature an expanded, multi-instrument sound, with musicians from the band Delicate Awol filling in with percussion, guitars, flute, keyboards, trumpet, and vocals. But on this 7", Mark Beazley, the remaining member of the original trio, solely composed and performed the release's two songs: 'Red Cells' and 'White Cells'. In these tracks he captures the two flavors of Rothko that have permeated its studio work and lays them out for display.
The first is rooted in a straightforward and stripped-down sound that is reflected in the title track. A guitar duet plucking and strumming a lonely tune is buffeted by the muffled, airborne explosions of some distant fireworks display, instantly transporting the listener into a late summer evening with fireflies weaving drunkenly through tall, grassy weeds.
The second is more experimental and amorphous, like a blackening cloud with jagged balls of lightning rolling through its interior. 'White Cells' opens with a fog of light feedback and distortion billowing and echoing like something ominous and insubstantial gathering strength to take material form. At the peak of its intensity, it suddenly erupts into a tender spray of chimes and plucked bass notes - the residue of fear lingering but slowly dissolving into the mist.
For longtime Rothko fans 'Red Cells' will resemble both a moving eulogy - a fond remembrance of an unconventional band that touched listeners with its austere, picturesque landscaping of the ambient badlands - and the promise of new sonic explorations. Wait and listen.icated than this
