RPM ORCHESTRA- Hit On All Sixes
Album Review
07/04/2015- Song River
While
listening to RPM Orchestra's album, Hit On All Sixes, I was
reminded of a hot, humid night locked away in a cellar, blasted on a
freaky batch of industrial strength moonshine. My well worn white
t-shirt soaked in a drenching of perspiration, as a singular fly
impatiently buzzed around me and I laid sprawled across a dirt floor.
RPM Orchestra is not your typical deal of orchestra music. What
they've concocted is a blend from a multiplicity of scraps around the
tool shed and brewed into a fine delivery they claim to be avant
garde. Their mechanical phenomenon is really what makes them a
post-core industrial folk and experimental batch of sound.
RPM
Orchestra's, Hit On All Sixes, is a mish-mash of well
orchestrated... well... conglomeration would be a better word, five
tracks of what the band endearingly terms, “structured
improvisation.” Where one may expect a percussion, a typewriter is
chosen, instead of a typical keyboard- a short wave radio delivers.
With their sounds intermingled and entwined the vocals are mixed into
the heightened delusional lusts of diesel fuel punk. A suitcase of
clarinet, washboard, dangor, laputaphone, slide guitar, primitive
reeds, tabmovuine, banjo, dual short wave radios, tabels, industrial
spring and so on.
Jim
Dustan's vocals and banjo bring you into the room with the opening
track, Bury Mine. The industrial pacemaker of sounds,
comes to play in, Bait and Switch, bringing in VicVOID,
Pete Petrisko, Erik Hunter, and Jocelyn Ruiz's unique mixes. Diesel
Punk princess, Jocelyn Ruiz, tinkles the toy piano and soft high
vocal sounds in, Song of Sheba, (reminded me of “Coin
Operated Boy” by Dresden Dolls). Decomposing
Claude Debussy (feat. Ome Ensemble),
is
filled with the sounds of short wave radio, and that pesky fly who
won't leave me alone! Industrial sounds, consistent clanging on the
pipes from down in the cellar, along with what sounds to be a Tibetan
singing bowl, finishes out Hit
on all Sixes,
with Untitled
(Rebirth).
RPM
Orchestra's sound is their own. Deconstructed, and purposefully set
quantifies. Just how many revolutions per minute is this equivocally,
interpreted deliverance? Query not, just indulge in the musical layer
of unique hooch.
RPM
Orchestra is
Jim Dustan (Banjo, Bass, Tambourine, vocals, guitar, drums, live sound engineering, recording)
Erik Hunter (drums, percussion)
Pete Petrisko (typewriter percussion, AM radio, noisemakers, shortwave radio, metallic, dual shortwave radios, conductor)
Jocelyn Ruiz (backing vocals, clarinet, flute, melodica, washboard, percussion, keyboards, piano, toy piano, harmonica, percussion, Tibetan singing bowl)
Vic VOID (slide guitar, modified bass, Laputaphone, clangor, Sacred Staff of Sister Obela, tabela, industrial spring, primitive reeds)
with
WildBill AKA Omar (cajon, brushes)
OME Ensemble:
Elizabeth Kennedy Bayer (flute)
Parker Davis (electric guitar)
Jim Dustan (Banjo, Bass, Tambourine, vocals, guitar, drums, live sound engineering, recording)
Erik Hunter (drums, percussion)
Pete Petrisko (typewriter percussion, AM radio, noisemakers, shortwave radio, metallic, dual shortwave radios, conductor)
Jocelyn Ruiz (backing vocals, clarinet, flute, melodica, washboard, percussion, keyboards, piano, toy piano, harmonica, percussion, Tibetan singing bowl)
Vic VOID (slide guitar, modified bass, Laputaphone, clangor, Sacred Staff of Sister Obela, tabela, industrial spring, primitive reeds)
with
WildBill AKA Omar (cajon, brushes)
OME Ensemble:
Elizabeth Kennedy Bayer (flute)
Parker Davis (electric guitar)
Cover art (1930 Zilotone) by Henry Dupuis Photo Credit: Henry Dupuis
Live performances recorded at Phoenix's The Trunk Space, Firehouse Gallery and A.R.T.S. Market
Released
on 52 Street Records
Purchase
Cd Baby
Song River is the owner of CowGirlZen Photography. She is also a freelance photojournalist. Currently working with L3 Magazine, Vents Mag, Silverplatter. You can follow her interviews, reviews of great musicians, writers, artists on her blog, http://cowgirlzenphoto.cowgirlzenphotojournalist.com/. She is also quite active in social media working as a copywriter for several companies, and individuals. Never wrong, always right... and filled with a twisted satirical outlooks on life sometimes... you have to be thinking out of the box most of the time to catch her. A mess of delight and quandary at times, but known for her love and compassion to help others succeed. A die hard Nikon proficient!
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