Zer0

Drone music can go either way with me. It can either pull me into a trance and blow my mind or it can bore the living hell out of me. This album falls into the latter. I don't quite recall how I acquired this album but it doesn't add anything to my music collection. While listening to this album I can't help but think "I can do this, anyone can do this." It sounds exactly what it is – one guy noodling around on an electric guitar in his bedroom, with a ton of effects pedals and some home recording equipment. Literally. And it goes on for an entire hour over the course of four tracks, each of them indistinguishable from each other and the whole thing just blends together into a mess of droning and feedback. The music is psychedelic, free-flowing and very much improvised. However there is just nothing for me to latch onto here, no interesting moods or textures, no interesting chord progressions or arrangements. Nothing that really appeals to me.

I find the back story of this artist far more interesting than the music on this album. Jason DiEmilio suffered a lot from depression as well as tinnitus and hyperacusis (extreme sensitivity to sound) and he sadly committed suicide in 2006. His contemporaries are listed as Bardo Pond, Flying Saucer Attack and Jessica Bailiff, but those artists have so, so, so much more to offer in one single song than what the entire duration of this album does. Into the recycling bin it goes.


An album that I've had lurking in my music collection for two years now. It's definitely two years because I remember first listening to this album two Christmases ago. Back then I may have thought that this album was only okay at best and then shelved it, but listening to it now it doesn't sound half bad. It's hard to put my finger on what this is or where these guys are coming from though. I would describe this album as art-rock with a wide range of influences ranging from post-punk, indie rock, krautrock, house music and some general weirdness thrown in for good measure. Sometimes this album works and sometimes it doesn't. But when it does work, on tracks such as the dancefloor-friendly 'Arena' and the addictive weirdness of 'Up Past the Nursery' for example, it gets quite interesting. However there's other times where I'm slightly reminded as to why I dislike bands like Yeasayer and Alt-J, where artiness and trying to do something different in music just ends up sounding awkward, irritating and contrived.

I still can't make up my mind as to whether I like this album overall or think it's just okay. It definitely has some very good tracks but despite the relatively short running time of thirty-seven minutes it does manage to squeeze in a few filler tracks. Perhaps it's an album that requires more patience and I do see it as an album that has potential. However at the same time I get the impression that these guys are trying something which doesn't quite work.

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