Having had the exquisite aftertaste of a U.S. Maple live performance (Lush in Tucson), what is there not to love? Every musician friend in the audience that evening did not understand, and in fact hated. And yet, what a performative performance! What tomfoolery in D! When not in deep meditation or listening to Squid Pisser, I can be found scaring neighborhood children with the track, “Chang, You’re Attractive”.

This three-sided double LP started as a Senyawa research and design project for a small temple altar. All the masonry was hand-carved by Senyawa, then laid up, consecrated and documented here in the liner notes and booklet. The cacophonous music gurgles and screams its way through the brain foundation of this modern stupa. Truly primordial and elemental in the most horrendous sense.

Danny, the drummer for Grand Ulena, worked as a library page back in the day. He tried to help me find the particular film which would contain “The Reason Your House Is Haunted Can Be Found On This Microfiche” to no avail. I miss you, Danny.
Arnulf Rödler’s artwork on the liner notes poster is superb. The music itself is exquisite, toe-tapping, complex and fulfilling. For those unacquainted with Yowie, this album is akin to “Dark Magus” by Miles Davis meets Don Caballero instrumentation.

Heck yes, I use the sticks. The hair pick only stays put in my pubic hair, however. This is an amazing, beautiful boxed set! The Plutonic color-squish vinyl has me standing before the Sixties-era Andersen window, hair pick in place, admiring the swirl and fade. And it’s not just the track, “Rust”, that gets us this way. Check out, “Presidential” and “Jukebox” to understand how idioms are forever evolved like anything thrown into the back of a full-size pickup truck since 1932.

Marnie Stern is the voice that you needed in your life but had yet to discover. Driving wild rhythms with asymmetrical patterns of guitar hyper-tapping? YES! Melodious adventures through other galaxies of gas and exploding supernovas? YES! Rainbow-vomiting kittens? Perhaps. You can whistle to these songs.