Extra Sexes – Gash Bulb [Skrot Up]

New tape by AG and Bryan Davis of Boy+Girl on the Danish label Skrot Up, whom my first encounter with was in my friend’s car when we blasted FNU Ronnies’ utterly bitching Golem Smoke EP on Skrot Up. This project is just a tad more relaxed than the furious freakfucks of their B+G moniker.
Gash Bulb is a mix of jacked samples and tumbling synth ditties. “Horn Rimmed Mind” is one of the latter and one of my favorites from the tape. Groovy, lurching drum machine and layered synth lines iced with manipulated vocal gibberish. Manages to hypnotize while getting your foot tapping. Sloshed bliss. The Davis boys could have put out a tape full of jams like this and I’d have been pleased as pie. However, those dudes are never content to just hang out and jam when there’s shit to be fucked up. “Gap/Solvent Bone Remorse” is a chopped up butt rock track. I don’t dig on cookie monster vocals (as previously mentioned elsewhere on this website) so this piece isn’t really up my alley. Although I’d rather hear this genre through Extra Sexes eyes than its own. The second of the piece, the “Solvent” part, is a sparse voice-like synth piece before glitching out at the end. “Front/Talk Some Sense” has cut up noise and samples before whipping out an outrageously rad (and zonked) hip hop/new wave mashup. Whatever this “ooh la la la” pop song they’re sampling is, I want it. “Languorous Pits” is a thudding drum machine and knob twiddling track that turns out nicely due to its rhythmic focus. “How Can We Stop/Suggestion” mashes more hip hop samples with and a 60s psych pop song. It has a great push/pull rhythmic tension before shifting gears to the lethargic homemade disco territory of the first track. There’s still a side to go and they’ve already covered so much ground.
Second side opener “Limited Virility with Classical Bitch” returns to the hip hop briefly (but to great effect) with scratchy electronics over top before launching into more glitched butt rock stuff leads to a loop of a slashin’ primal garage rock riff that Extra Sexes deconstruct a bit ultimately leading to a chopped up and rebuilt classical symphony. The last part is quite an interesting reimagining of classical music, ending with a ten second basement party rave up. “Positive Survey” is more crunchy synth/beats stuff. “8 Ways to Break It” is more hip hop stuff with the DJ playing fast and loose with the turn table speed. It’s scrambled stuff but finds a beat eventually. “Piano Gash” is among the most interesting pieces on the tape—an avant-garde piano piece composed from sampling one or many avant-garde piano pieces. As with the rest of the tape, the focus of “Piano Gash” is rhythm and repetition so the piece sounds strangled and sharply positioned/contorted which miraculously with works with the looseness of the source material. “Screaming Over Bulbs” is the unexpected finale, about twenty seconds of looped metalcore.
This is a cool tape, particularly if your into fucked samples. It’s been consistently engaging all the times I’ve listened to it and Extra Sexes is doing something different from a lot of people putting out tapes.
Comes with an uncomfortably frightening j-card and a proof of purchase!! I’m gonna start saving these up, I heard its only 50 proofs of purchase to get Skrot Up brand walkie talkies.