SCRAM SIGNAL psych/drone duo pairs primal drumming with minimalism
SCRAM SIGNAL
"SCRAM 5" (out 2/16)
V/A - Untold Stories (out 4/19)
Label: Moon Ruins
FFO: Earth, Sunn O))), Caustic Resin
RIYL: drone, psych, art rock, doom
For those of us that have watched the career of Brett Netson closely, Scram Signal is a logical destination. He’s always operated from the veil of the surreal and the contemplative. Listen to Netson’s guitar work on Built to Spill’s seminal album, Perfect from Now On and ponder if that album hits the same without him (spoiler alert: it doesn’t). That deep connection we feel to songs like Randy Described Eternity, I Would Hurt a Fly, and Stop the Show, are strengthened through the patient and hypnotic enticement of Netson’s adaptation of minimalism and drone.
The river of Drone is as deep as it is wide. It has many faces and is known by many names. Whether it’s the minimalist composers of La Monte Young and Philip Glass, or The Velvet Underground's chilling drone-rocker Venus in Furs, or doom-drone bands like Sunn O))) and Earth, they all have one thing in common—the alluring pull into an alternate metaphysical state. Regardless of the genre orientation, each example lays a meditative backdrop and a primal pathway that leads to a different “here”.
That’s why the addition of Netson to the touring line up of doom-drone pioneers, Earth, has felt so right. For those fortunate enough to catch this line up on the road, the minimalist interplay of Netson and Dylan Carlson’s sustained tones across Earth’s movements of Cats on the Briar, Scalp Hunter's Blues, and Datura's Crimson Veils, prove that the authors of the simulation we all call “collective reality” got this pairing right.
What makes Scram Signal special is the team up of Jake Hite, a native of Netson’s own Boise, Idaho. Hite is a longtime contributor to the Boise music scene in bands such as Cerberus Rex and Discoma (among many others) as well as a longtime DJ at Boise’s own tastemaking, community oriented radio station, KRBX. Hite’s aesthetic compliments Netson’s psych oriented guitar playing through his tasteful and primal drumming. Each beat of Hite’s floor tom is accentuated by the constant arpeggiated electronic oscillation making the instrumentation of Scram Signal so unique in the genre of drone.
