If I’m not mistaken Wk. 1 is my favorite tape of the year. It makes me want to jump into a video game, Streets of Rage maybe, and double-drop-kick the hot SHIT out of a few drug-dealing psychos. WHOOOOBOY I’m going to try not to gush but WERK render the rest of y’all so unnecessary it’s crazy. And I’m talking about myself here; it’s all about WERK-WERK-WERK when this tape is playing. Echo-dusted drum wreckage, Colour Bük-style improv (or at least it seems improvised, and also: I miss Colour Bük), warbling noise-isms, yawning chasms of dark-grey funnel clouds set to droooooone-rock, cobra-snake lunges of guitar out of the Swans playbook, unscripted chaos; all these things and more await you within the sick, gnarly monster-lips of this twisted tape. I wish I could sit in with these guys and pound out a few LUMPA-LUMPA beats of my own, Beefheart’s band-style. Whatever. I’m not saying Wk. 1 is perfect (whatever that means anyway), mind you. I’m enamored first and foremost by WERK’s affinity for taking chances, for reaching for distant heights most bands rightly assume they’ll never trespass. A lot of spur-of-the-moment types can pull off a drone that doesn’t change much in an hour, and even more nostalgia-driven fools can pay the metaphorical indie-scene bills by plumbing the past and adding precious little to the mix. But how many of these soundalikes even conSIDer busting their delicate headz through the plate-glass barriers before them when it comes to stepping outside of their comfortable cocoons and laying down something unPRECedented? I’m sickened by the lack of quality in 80% of popular and independent music these days (particularly the former, which has betrayed me utterly) and I’m mother-fucking flummoxed as to why more people can’t hear bands like WERK do their things. These guys could fill stadiums with this shit, but their egos don’t require such things. They’re content to make music they know is, on the down-low, dollars-to-donuts superior to what’s out there, with maybe a few exceptions. I’m stoked, you should be too, so why am I so sure you’ll totally let Wk. 1 float right by you like a sinking ship’s bubble trail? You bastards owe me this much; put WERK to work and they’ll melt your mind twice, once for each tape side.
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