Anthropological Field Recordings For The Dispossessed

This double-disc set is a welcome collection of material from Metgumbnerbone, a project featuring John Mylotte, who was joined by his contemporaries: The New Blockaders’ Philip and Richard Rupenus, Sean Bredin, and Mike Watson. They only released two albums back in 1983, and excerpts from both feature here, along with plenty of previously unreleased material. Mylotte’s exploring something deeply ritualistic, with cycles of percussion, stately whispers of wind instruments, and vocal threnodies, played out in acoustically rich, resonant spaces – silos, railway tunnels, industrial ruins, etc.. It’s gorgeous stuff, spectral and evocative, most powerful when things are pared to their core.