Reynols

recording of 10,000 chickens in a battery farm, and an album of treated tape

hiss for Bernhard Günter's trente oiseaux label. Once nearly arrested in

Buenos Aires (on the grounds that they might reflect a negative image of

Argentina - maybe Tomasin's next move could be to change his name to Eva

Peron) for plugging their axes into pumpkins and not playing in public, the

trio caught the attention of the new music media with "Pauline Oliveros in

the Arms of Reynols", which brought them an invitation to play a seven-hour

Lincoln Center concert with Pauline herself. All of this is well-known, but

what about the music?

"Bolas Tristes" is a collection of short (except for "Permuto Hojaldre"

which clocks in at 13'25") nihilistic sound blasts recorded between 1994 and

1996 and originally released on cassette in England by Matching Head. Here

it's "remastered" (??) and housed in a lurid fluorescent orange jewel box

(the CD itself seems to have been spray-painted in the same orange and won't

play on half the machines I've tried it on, which is presumably deliberate).

The duff sound quality and uncompromisingly bleak feel of these pieces

strikes a chord with anyone brought up on No Wave and New Wave; "Viento que

sopla pajaros" sounds like early Glenn Branca on downers, and "Eco-tom" and

"Colosos del Aroma" wouldn't be out of place on a Swans bootleg. The

"Barbatrulos" album, recorded in 1997 and 1998, sounds remarkably similar:

not since Danny and the Dressmakers' "Don't Make Another Bass Guitar Mr.

Rickenbacker" has lousy drumming sounded so good. (There are no track titles,

we're told, because "they" (the band, or the titles?) "went to buy osobuco

[sic] to feed our chihuahua dog."..) "Minecxio", most of which dates from

last year, throws together answering machine messages, TV channel signature

tunes and Tomasin's banshee wailing (recorded in a steel mill from the sound

of it) over a backdrop of wailing guitars and effects-loaded drumming. It's

curiously compelling stuff, this strange mixture of early Red Crayola,

Birthday Party and Jesus and Mary Chain (at 16rpm), and I'm half-tempted to

learn Spanish just to be able to figure out what Tomasin is on about (though

I'm not sure it would help much).

Scrolling down the pages of the Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers website in

search of information about their recent Reynols release ("- - - -"), I

realize there must be hundreds, maybe thousands, of people hidden away in

garages all over the world making this kind of noise, or something like it.

Whether Reynols' undoubted knack for self-publicity makes their musical

output more worthy of attention is debatable, but in today's Britney shitney

world it's rather comforting to know these guys are out there. And out there

they certainly are.