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Runtime: 66'00''
«The strong fascination aroused by Gutta Percha is for the most part unutterable, which means that writing about their music could be sabotaged from the start. Accordingly, their biographic presentation is limited to a few scarce facts: it is a project by two brothers (Brent & Ryan Hibbett) from Illinois, one a multi-instrumentalist and the other a “sound architect”, and neither is particularly interested in showing his face in the few promotional photos that they make available.
Accounted for is a debut album, "Tube Overtures", at the emergent The Land Of, and their sophomore effort is now entrusted to the ever-vigilant test tube. And where Tube Overtures was a magical album, released into the air by antennas planted on North American roofs, A Crawlspace Companion contrasts by the way it lets itself be dragged by a living sludge filled with memories more obscure than those that haunted the previous record. While the TV series themes served as a motto for the free appropriations included in Tube Overtures, this time we may suspect that forgotten records from the basement serve as impetus for the assemblage of these pieces, put together and (dis)organized like the human subconscious. Gutta Percha not only play the forgotten music, but the dust accumulated over all those years— the same dust that, being scattered everywhere, makes everything more intriguing and engaging in the parallel universe where Gutta Percha operate.
The descent from the roof to the underground suggests verticality as the link between these two records, almost like a twist on the verticality that connects the two social classes in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (and remember that the title of his last film also includes the word “companion”). Gutta Percha brew their own kind of candid music while being permanently seduced by the error. Among the five dealt cards in the Gutta Percha tarot, it is very likely that two of them will always remain hidden. And Gutta Percha know how to work this oscillation between the familiar and the unknown all too well.»
- Miguel Arsénio
"In Memory of Beverly Hibbett, 1943-2009" |
Reviews:
«A Crawlspace Companion is the sophomore effort by the brothers Hibbett from Illinois, USA. The 5-pieced set rings out as if an indicative approach of ambient music on getting aware of itself. However, it subsequently gets conscious of itself. It offers up warm yet haunting arcs of soundscapes being synergized with the samples from the scenes of ancient music and dark-hued orchestrated pieces. In fact, being adequately accented it evokes lots of memories with no certain addresses and hints at, however, reminding of the genuine works by James Kirby aka The Caretaker. Just great. [9.6/10]»
- Borealiscape [Recent Music Heroes] / July 06, 2011
«Listening While Submerged.
Back in March, Brent and Ryan Hibbert aka Gutta Percha released A Crawlspace Companion of Test Tube. From the first track, “Conscious Listening I”, one realizes that you are about to listen to an incredible work. The slow pace and subtle texture of this 13-minute track draw the listener in to the artists world, one we won’t escape from for another hour. The songs are a combination of sound manipulation, instrumentation, and field recordings that flow forward in an ambient map of unconnected soundscapes that meld together blissfully. There is the unquestionable dreamlike status of the editing which gives the album a magical realism feel throughout. Gutta Percha’s A Crawlspace Companion is an extraordinary work.»
- David Nemeth [Acts of Silence] / June 27, 2011
«For the first seven minutes and fifty seconds of the track "Unconscious Listening III" by Gutta Percha, it's all murky noise, the gentle creepiness of industrial industrial music. But a second later, at 7:51, everything changes. A true oldie pops up, like someone flipped a switch on the radio. It's ballroom nostalgia, dancing cheek to cheek, but the signal is marred, either the band caught in a time slip or the vinyl record left out in the rain. The melody is indelible, even if it is forced to stop and restart repeatedly. Percha manages to have it both ways, to treat the listener to a great song, and to mark it up, to deface it. Each act has it's unique impact: the antique pop song a surprising thing to surface, not only on an album largely populated by noise music, but midway through song; the marred rendition a reminder of the inevitability of decline.»
- Marc Weidenbaum [Disquiet.com] / March 23, 2011 |
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Copyleft:
cover:
©2011 aeriola::behaviour
music:
©2010 Gutta Percha
©2011 test tube
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