Some of psychedelia's most enduring opuses were pieced together from tapes
of rehearsals and live recordings. Consider the Grateful Dead's Anthem of
the Sun, Agitation Free's colossal Malesch, The Faust Tapes, or the numerous
volumes crafted from Amon Düül I's Psychedelic Underground sessions. Since
the band evolved from jam sessions featuring members of Boston's
psychedelic-rock elite, it's only fitting that Abunai! (that's anime-speak
for "look out!") should turn to the tapes for its third album. Round Wound
is a collage of studio jams, in which the band's threads - Kris Thompson's
Hawkind-styled synths, Joe Turner's driven drumming, Dan Parmenter's
Funkadelic basslines, and Brendan Quinn's impressive assortment of
acid-stained, Eastern, and folk-wise guitars - are woven into one most
excellent whole. Tracks crisscross every which way, with instruments layered
over, under, and upside one another for maximum density. Each track stands
as a testament to tapecraft. Riffs are swallowed and skewed by vortical
keyboards and spit out of labyrinthine wormholes. Golden skeins are spun
from discarded ideas. While individual tracks often pass in the space of
several blinks, "Drowning in Light" pulses and shudders like a dark star
collapsing at the album's center, issuing a thousand psychotropic variations
on a vaguely "Paint it Black"-like theme from its black-hole heart.
"Motorcycle Boots" and "Electric Reynolds" also spin off enough garage riffs
and fantastical keyboard flights to be secondary nuclei. In truth, each of
the 21 tracks is both generated and generator, adding to the galaxies of
debris incorporated into Round Wound's kaleidoscopic cut-and-paste trip. It'
s a wonder that the plastic packaging, cleverly designed to resemble a
packet of guitar strings, can hold it all in.
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