Search - Az (Scissor Girls) :: Music For Scattered Brains

A guide to total mental disintegration

semanticfelon | tempe, arizona United States | 10/26/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's hard to say anything meaningful about this album. Mostly it is comprised of extra-musical sounds squeezed out of bizarre and forgotten synths. Nothing fits together, the song titles make William Burroughs' cut-up texts read like John Grisham, and the artist's intent in making this album is miles past esoteric. Vague stirrings of angst ('The Killing-Me Anthem') combine with more general arbitrariness and absurdity. Of course anyone buying this album (admittedly not many) will be well familar with these tactics, having doubtless experienced them before in AZ's late lamented Scissor Girls. But the de-volution goes much farther here than even the SG's most chaotic moments. It seems like this album is really a voyage into the mind of someone suffering from debilitating psychosis mixed with tv-show inanity and teetering on the edge of total incomprehensibility. Despite these challenges, or more likely because of them, this is a fascinating piece of wreckage, and I only marvel that it was ever released at all. And while AZ seems to be focused again on the guitars with B.O.N.N., I do hope that another snapshot of her frayed synthesized vision is released someday.."