Sheep Ditch - Live at the Palms - Wonder Valley, and Noah Purifoy Shelter - Joshua Tree

ADJACENT 17/GGGR-118
Though not exclusively, it’s not rare for the duo of Jay Howard (Circuit Wound) and Scott Miller (Slurred Oath) to collaborate together (and habitually including additional guests) in atypical spaces: the side of a mountain, an abandoned amphitheater, and in the case of the second half of this new LP, in one of artist Noah Purifoy’s Joshua Tree based building / art-pieces, “Shelter”: a highly improvised collage of junk and metal, curated and constructed into a recognizable structure. Here, the group expands to a trio with Ben Daniel (Kesem) (while on the front side, recorded at The Palms in Wonder Valley, Rob Magill joins as a third player). Sheep Ditch’s approach to composition mirrors these aesthetics, though where often times traditional means of experimentation and group-based free improvisation may result in ecstatic cacophony (especially when the players may run adjacent to traditional “noise”), the space between is embraced as a collaborator and the interplay is given expansive room to breathe, much like the dynamics found in historical groups such as AMM or Musica Elettronica Viva, or modern groups such as (Wooden Wand and) The Vanishing Voice or No Neck Blues Band. High fidelity / stereo lathe-cut LPs, co-released by Gilgongo and Adjacent.
ltd. 30