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CL 013CD
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"Christmas Decorations' second full-length Communal Rust should please fans who have been following the lineage of processed-guitar heroes and anti-heroes (Fennesz, Ambarchi, et al). But where those icons are making forays into drone and noise, Christmas Decorations are taking the other fork in the road, back towards the melancholic, crisp strum of post-punk and indie, and back towards an atomized, crumpled, improvised sound design. Communal Rust documents essential 'anti-guitar guitar music.' The songs revolve around a dichotomy between guitar-pedal-and-computer induced fragmentation, on one hand, and the intricate, melodic guitar motifs referenced to classic post-punk and forgotten lo-fi indie music. Pull away the layers of glitches, snippets, trills, and echoes and you might discover a core guitar disposition that recalls the contemplative, steely tone of early Factory, 4AD, or New Zealand music. That's not to say that the duo is boxed in by reference points; moreso, these influences are exerting the most gravitational pull on the band's temptations to commit all-out, fractional sonic disintegration. This tension between new and old, rough and smooth, or chaos versus control, puts the band squarely in the ComLib sensibility of sublimely balancing problem and accessibility in music. Following on the band's debut release, the criminally underappreciated Model 91, Communal Rust marks a key point in the band's development and is a crucial addition to any collection of experimental music."
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KRANK 053CD
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"The exploded view, deadpan pop of Model 91 marks the recorded debut of the Brooklyn, NY duo Christmas Decorations. Using vocals, guitar, bass guitar, low budget digital sequencers, and melodica Christmas Decorations recorded Model 91 in Spring 2002. The band have started to call their music 'ambient punk' and point to modern electronic composers like Gert-Jans Prins, Carsten Nicolai (Alva Noto) and Wolfgang Voigt (Gas, M:15) and abrasive minimalists The Shadow Ring as inspirations as well as older referents like Ike Yard and Desmond Simmons' Alone on Penguin Island album. The 13 tracks veer from claustrophobic to expansive and can be choppy or mesmerizing. Christmas Decorations take a succinct, direct approach to song structure and instrumentation while experimenting with mood and melody."
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