Search - Bruce Anderson & Dale Sophiea :: Strict

The only one in the series

Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 12/07/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Wow, the date is definitely incorrect here. I've had this disc for at least 4 years. No way was it released in 2002. Actually for a long time I don't think this disc was even available here, as I bought it at a much smaller specialty store. Maybe 2002 is when the Family Vineyard label gained larger distribution. Anyway...



Of this little series of musical cousins... this disc, Lugubrious, Medication, and Balkana (which I never bought, based on how unhappy I have been with the other 2), this is the only one I recommend. It has more "tape hiss" than you'd want or expect from an album recorded and released in the late '90s, and again, it's not the fullest recording-quality you've ever heard, but the music does its part to negate those factors.



Unlike the other two albums, this one actually seems to have a purpose and a point of view. The other two come across almost as sampling practice and never really achieve anything or take your mind on any sort of a journey. Strict does this, though.



Strict is the usual Bruce Anderson on guitar, Dale Sophiea on bass and sampling type of deal. The theme and mood of this one is sort of a drone-rock excursion into creepy Western European religious undertones. Samples of (seemingly) Old World religious choral music come and go over a textural buzz of electric guitar, sometimes rising up into larger walls of electric noise.



Again, this isn't a disc I'd grab if I had to be shipped off to a deserted island with nothing but 100 cds, a generator, and a cd player, but it is the best thing I have heard from Bruce in quite a long time. My rating is more accurately right around 3.7 or 3.8 stars. I don't hesitate to recommend this one, whereas I easily say skip right over the others in this series.



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