Sarah Lipstate, a Brooklyn-based drone master, and David Wm. Sims, the bass player of Jesus Lizard, each share a side of wax to create one great split. “Bleached Valentine” proves that Lipstate hasn’t lost her touch, but is as sharp as ever. With her three tracks, she calls upon the help of her guitar and effects pedals and equipment to create a lush, yet mild dream state. In my opinion, these tracks are a little bit more like her fantastic debut, “Red Rainbows,” than her more tamed and lucid sophomore effort, “Desert Fires.” The first track, “Starve,” is a composite of single-note drones that work together to create quite the atmosphere. Then, “Happiness Can’t Make You Happy” is an eleven minute-long introspective yet playful shimmering aquatic dance. Apparent enough that you can feel it, but ethereal enough that you can’t catch it. The final is a more bass-driven, toe-tapping looped vision of heavy hazed-out guitar. Now that I think of it, this might be some of my favorite material from her yet. unFact’s flipside was a completely new experience for me, since I had never had any encounters with his work before. However, it was quite a treat. unFact’s medium is very new to me. He does bass-based drone. Very rarely do you hear this done with the electric bass, but it is fantastic! The first track, for example, has a deep whale recording sound thanks to the low tone. Each of the four tracks though feature some serious bass riffage throughout. The first really caught my attention though, with the crazy textural atmosphere and the recorded improvisations over top. A really great split by two great artists that you need to keep track of. Noveller continues to impress, while unFact gets my attention for the first time. Check it! Oh, by the way, limited to 500 on white vinyl with black marbling.
Saffron Recordings/Ox-Ghost Recordings
9/10
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