Premature Burial
The Conjuring [LP; New Atlantis]

No use putting a spin on it: The Conjuring is a spectacularly fiendish good time as both a clinical exercise, from perhaps a more academic jazz standpoint, and a just-plain-fun perspective. I’ve never heard an album like it, Premature Burial introducing me to new sights, smells, and screeches as they throttle their horns like uniformed beasts who know they’re about to be caught by the opposition. I DARE you to buy this record and play it LOUD and PROUD in the dark the next time you get the chance. Cuts like “Eschatology” and “Bodiless Screams” fill the blackness with a sense of foreboding you’d normally expect from a horror-film soundtrack (oh GOD not that again), yet The Conjuring goes so much further than the average score, adding squiggles and accents in places you’d never imagine exploring if you were trying to follow a visual narrative. Peter Evans (piccolo trumpet), Matt Nelson (saxophone/effects), and Dan Peck (tuba, effects) are responsible for Premature Burial. I don’t know what they plan to do next but they’ve put forward a devastating piece of art, tension tight as if a fuse is burning, yet endowed with the patient touches that render the ‘harder stuff’ that much more impressive. Much like a hamburger on Hank Hill’s lawn, it’s almost a shame to lose this album to the process of reviewer-turnover digestion; I have a feeling The Conjuring is going to haunt my record room for months to come even as it becomes a (GOD FORBID) more and more untimely pleasure. Ugh, the sands of modern media bury us all. Anyway, this is hands-down one of my favorite records in a year so slam-bang with talent the idea of a top-20 year-end albums list causes me to go into utter and complete physical shock. Don’t ignore this one, a twice-baked mood-jazz potato that ‘POPS’ visually as well as aurally (not to mention in the microwave-HIYO). Another New Atlantis year, another round-up of triumphs, from this-here record to the Upsilon Acrux full-length to the Excavacations re-ish (originally on much-missed Weird Forest Recs) and several other treasures you whiffed on earlier and need to get-with. Over and out, kidzzz; it’s late.

Links: New Atlantis

Cerberus

Cerberus seeks to document the spate of home recorders and backyard labels pressing limited-run LPs, 7-inches, cassettes, and objet d’art with unique packaging and unknown sound. We love everything about the overlooked or unappreciated. If you feel you fit such a category, email us here.

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