Blues Control - Puff (Fusetron, 2008)
The lp version of this came out earlier but we waited for the cd to come in before reviewing it. Maybe just 'cause Blues Control takes some time to digest, since they're so... different. And, we think, pretty darn cool.
You kind of have to listen to instrumental duo Blues Control as much for what's not going on, than what is. What's missing from the equation that suddenly makes 2+2 not equal 4 in Blues Controls' unusual math. Not by that to suggest that they're a "math rock" band. Nope, the name don't lie (nor does it tell the truth), they are a blues band. Of sorts, sort of. But playing the blues in an alternate, warped universe, where fragmentary fuzz guitars are friendly with tick-tocking clocks.
Sometimes they're subtracting stuff, leaving out the vocals and other usual blues signifiers and song structures and so forth. Or sometimes they work their magic by addition and multiplication (the layered looping of "Behind The Skies" ferinstance). It's all about abstraction, repetition, distortion. Suddenly 2+2 is an interesting problem to work out. And often, a pretty one.
The title track that opens the album features echoey percussive loops over which electronic notes gently cascade, reminding us of both Moolah and Cluster. Next, "Always On Time" proceeds similarly, with a recurring piano riff as centerpiece for soloing amidst a warm and gauzy bed of sound. That's followed by "Behind The Skies", which takes the disc to its darkest, grindingest depths. And then, "End Zone" is the sort of thing that Jimi Hendrix (if appropriately dosed with dowers) wouldn't mind jamming along to. Sleepy whale call electric blooze guitar from the other side. So much spaced out ambience, which gets even mellower, or mellowest, on the lovely album-ender "Call Collect".
http://rapidshare.com/files/138538262/BluesControlPuff.zip