Sun City Girls - High Asia/Lo-Pacific: Carnival Folklore Resurrection Volumes 9 and 10
(Abduction)
The mighty musical juggernaut known as the Sun City Girls rolls on yet again. Their self-released Carnival Folklore Resurrection series continues forward with no indication of ending anytime in the near future. This latest two disc installation in the series features a whopping eighty minutes of the Girls' mayhem. The band continues to explore and work within many genres and approaches, and this set gives you a couple of distinct tastes. High Asia is a return to the gamelan and Southern Asian influenced madness that was central to some of the band's moments of true genius on Torch of the Mystics and 330,003 Crossdressers from Beyond Rig Veda. Start to finish, it packs a massive punch. Lo-Pacific is a trip back to the sort of field recordings and radio collages that yield the same result from continuous play of the triple disc Box of Chameleons and that also saw release as a portion of the background on Sumatran Electric Chair. While the discs are night and day apart from one another, there is a definite unifying fingerprint that points towards the singular musical mind behind this collection.
High Asia won't trick you—it's one of the band's solidly Eastern-inspired efforts. This is evidenced from the beginning with the efficient and powerful "Draco Kilik," a dandy little two and a half minute acoustic guitar and keyboard led romp through interesting vocal harmonies. This formula works most effectively on "Philly SOUL LAO." It adds vocal "harmonies" and drums to the mix and is amazing. Imagine some sort of corner coffee shop simple musical power fronted by a couple of wailing banshees from the South Pacific. Eerie and beautiful. For further reference, see tracks like "Zingka Doi' or "Qator Sidaan Yong." Another mild stereotype that some of these tracks can be lumped into are the more sonic and confrontational pieces like "The Buttered Windy" and "Naga Smoke Signals." The album also features more atmospheric and almost-instrumental tracks like "The Yeti Stiff Compound Evacuation Ray" (which also is the hands-down winner of song title of the album award), "Old Glory's Fade" and "Blood Clear." This disc clocks in at a hair under forty minutes and that time flies by. This disc is a complete winner that fans of Torch of the Mystics and 330,303 Crossdressers cannot afford to miss.
Lo-Pacific is a definite treat, albeit one that I probably won't find myself spinning all that frequently. Depending on what your personal Sun City Girls preference is, your experiences may prove otherwise. The disc is one continuous forty-minute track capable of many different sorts of sensory attack. Field recordings and short-wave radio signals of all kinds are combined in a number of ways. Overlapping with simultaneous play and a Doppler-like effect, the listener will feel a number of different sensations. There are points where you'll feel like you're in the middle of a Asian street market and also those where it will feel like your vote is the next one that will be needed at some sort of minor tribal council. The range of sounds and sensations is quite high and provides for an experience you can get few other places. Inspired when properly played.
Those who pick up the High Asia/Lo-Pacific double disc set will not come away disappointed by any stretch of the imagination. Upon purchase you'll end up with one of the band's complete gems in High Asia, the type of record that would serve as both an excellent introductory point to the new listener as well as dutifully serve the grizzled fan. This disc sits proudly next to Libyan Dream as the greatest and most consistent record in the Carnival Folklore Resurrection series while also ranking as one of my all-time favorite Sun City Girls releases; it's that good. You also acquire the forty-minute sound collage of Lo-Pacific—the sort of concept release that might not get frequent play but will be valued when it does get a spin. Highly recommended.
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