Slasher Risk – Triple Jesus [Kass/Jamps]

Slasher Risk is a unit out of Brooklyn made up of Andy and Sara. I’d heard the name around the net but had never had privilege hearing them. They remedied that though with their first LP Triple Jesus.
Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t the name Slasher Risk make you think violence? Anyway, I wasn’t sure what I was in for but figured it’d probably be pretty noisy. To my surprise however, the “helicopter” side of the LP is a wandering dual guitar jam. Excellent! I love noise and all but I really love dual guitar jams. This particular one is a warbly, glistening bout of clean toned tanglings. The best reference I can think of is, Tom Carter projects, Sarin Smoke and Spiderwebs. This Slasher Risk jam though is a bit more consonant than those. Despite the long track length the jam is never stuck spinning its wheels. There’s always a momentum pushing things forward mostly due to the well-employed rhythm/lead style. The guitars trade off playing more coherent/rhythmic parts and more free/textural parts. This track because of its length had to be improvised, which is amazing to me cause Andy and Sara ceaselessly turn out spectacular arpeggio/interplay/whatever after spectacular arpeggio/interplay/whatever. There are lots and lots of beautiful breaks where they’ll build rhythmically to some point where it all dissipates into a beautiful melody. Things get a bit rougher and more menacing towards the end without really changing their sound at all, which is always a thing for my ears to behold. This piece just keeps on ruling and ruling, never getting old never getting boring. So yeah, this jam is totally killer. Slasher Risk are occupying an interesting space in the guitar-duosphere because a) their guitars are totally meant to sound like guitars b) they use traditional tactics in an interesting way, marrying the long psych jam with good, compelling guitar playing and well composed melodic interaction. Well done.
The “security camera view” side sees a bit noisier confrontational side of the duo. I can’t tell if they are rolling in dual guitar format. There is one guitar definitely, but other person could be guitar or just effects or something. It’s an ominous sounding ride and difficult to pin down. Again, like the first side, Slasher Risk keeps forging ahead running through different portions of sound. At one point there’s a guitar strum and then noisy squiggles made from effects or synth or guitar maybe. At another there’s a pulsing guitar drone interrupted by flashes of static noise. While the movements don’t gel as well as they did on the first side, there’s still a good momentum to the proceedings. Not so for the last half of the side though. There’s a break and a new track begins. Unfortunately, the last piece is a bunch of random fumbling and never coheres into anything really meaningful, ending rather anti-climactically. Nonetheless, Triple Jesus is still three fourths of a great record.
The LP is limited to a hundred copies, which ain’t that much if you think about it. Other details: black vinyl, printed labels, screenprinted sleeves and a numbered insert. It’s released on the band’s Kass/Jamps label so check here for info.