drunk elk - s/t

at first glance a ramshackle and amateurish work by a band without a drummer, closer examination reveals this lp by drumless trio drunk elk to be something of a narcoleptic masterpiece. the group comes from hobart, the most frigid major city in australia, and there is something of a gray minimal wave chill in the tones here, not to mention the lyrics, which fixate on the metaphysical, in particular "zones without people", as in the bottom of the southern ocean, i.e. away from everything, away from all people, in a kind of unimaginable black space, not to mention a song dedicated to nastassja kinski, whose allure i might describe as forbidding and/or hostile. with key and bass arrangements forming a fragile, jagged patchwork, the seemingly dashed off lyrics gradually reveal a real economy of dissociative dream cyphers, just view these phrases:

"it's not like walking on two feet"

"words lose all meaning, no matter what language you speak"

"i like falling into sleep"

"winter rivers is the night"

it's an entire album teetering on the edge, dumb as in struck dumb, as in trapped in a hall of mirrors. i cannot recommend it enough!

label: house rules - hr 001
condition: vg+/vg+, not the cleanest pressing/recording quality, but mildly worn overall.