Maybe there is some merit to making it up as you go along. I can?t really see why, but Churchburners seem to think so. And if you think so too then ?February Fucks the Fourth Track? must sound like a great idea on paper. This past February, lone Churchburner ?Z? decided to sit down once a day, every day, and record an original track even including the non-existent leap day. I?ve been sitting on this CDR for awhile, but with NaNoWriMo coming up, it seems fitting for a review. While there?s plenty to dislike about that contest/concept, Churchburners use some of those bad attribute to their advantage. First, if you had a good idea to write about, why the hell would you wait until November to work on it? Well, there seems to be little waiting involved in Churchburners recording process. The project has a ton of past releases (none of which I?ve heard) and I?m not getting the impression that any ?good? ideas were saved for February. The songs all sound like they were recorded on the spot, some sounding completely improvised, others like a single idea dressed up in a lot of fuzz and feedback. What we bear witness to here is not musically appealing, despite some good songs, and it isn?t intellectually intriguing as this is all performed with an outsider art mentality. It?s just pretty fucked up.

Which brings up another NaNoWriMo issue, how do you expect to write a coherent, stylized piece of fiction in 30 days? You should know you?re going to get just as much random, annoying bullshit as you?d expect from such a compulsory concept as ?February.? But with lo-fi concept albums, it somehow fits. The problem may be that this guy has some serious songwriting diarrhea here. Tracks about anthropomorphized groundhogs and spoken word pieces about Sudoku skills are definitely the shit in this stew. And there?s plenty of annoying vocal pieces that make me want to slap this guy out of his ADD. I mean, ?Bus? a nut?? Come on? Yet, other songs betray a penchant for the simple pop melodies of bedroom cassette culture of yore but get so buried in aimless, overpowering distortion and tuneless singing that I don?t know whether to chalk this album up to drugs or boredom. ?Return of the Hermit Claw? starts a long stretch that sounds like an old Sentridoh cassette played through a cheap distortion unit and totally rocks hard until it just complete disintegrates into a miasma of feedback in the end. ?Lonesome home alone blues? and ?Six months through? also fall into such an indie niche but sung with a little too much conviction to be a parody. ?Library Ghosts? is an awesomely squawking piece of improv noise that I adore. ?Untitled Boners? is just straight pedal noise that could use the aforementioned squawk. It?s good music in the sense that you like to jam it on the headphones just to feel weird, but wouldn?t necessarily recommend it to friends for the same reason. I?ve got no problem recommending it to complete strangers though. If you like randomized lo-fi weirdoes like John Thill or Whitman, you?re probably spending your limited cash at thrift stores. What?s one CDR when you can get ten tapes for the same price? For the rest of you, I don?t know. Got a few extra dollars? It might be good deterrent for that political sci-fi love story novel you were planning to start next month. 5/10 -- Kenneth Zubiate (24 October, 2007)