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(Vital Weekly) Shelf Life is Brian Day's most important musical venture today, besides of course running Public Eyesore. Shelf Life is a quartet of musicians, besides Day, there is also A. Boardman, J. Jaros and J. Schleidt. The cover doesn't list any instruments, but I believe to hear a saxophone, one or more guitars, a short wave and some sort of percussion. They are played in a true improvised manner: hit it and see what comes out. They pluck, hit, strumm their instruments in what turns out to be an endless stream of sounds. Thirteen pieces in total, although it's hard to say when a piece ends and when a new one begins. This is my main objection against this release: the dynamic level is not very high, so everything happens on more or less the same level, which is a pity, since it makes it a bit too much in a free form mass of sound. Some more mixing could have helped. Unless of course the idea was to have a total democratic sound, and not have one to play the leading part. If that was their goal, they succeeded in that very well. - Frans de Waard