Nath Family - Sounds of the Indian Snake Charmer Vol. II |Hanson|

Of course the guy wrote about it himself so why should I even bother to concur and try different words on the same matter? Possibly because it's that intriguing and spellbinding, also because I don't have anything better to do and I really think you should know of this asap.

Here's the deal. Aaron Dilloway once was a member of Wolf Eyes, he claims he still is and even mixed Wolf Eyes' latest Sub Pop beast Human Animal but maybe he just got kicked out and snuck inside their studio to tweak a few knobs and shit. Actually no, he didn't get kicked out. He just made use of one of the great Wolf Eyes company advantages and took a sabbatical to travel to the Far East. Thing is, Dillo (as he's called in the 'scene') basically was the noisy guts of Wolf Eyes, the guy responsible for that sinister crawling through stanking gutter vibe, he's like that charming but delightfully raunchy Sugababe that left last year. Without him, not so much dirty dirrty, get it? So that's a shame but the guy needed a break. And what country better to take a break in than Nepal? No uhm, Kate Moss isn't a country, yet.

While in Nepal, Dilloway's wife went to study at the Kathmandu Association For The Deaf and Dillo had a lot of time to roam the Nepalese backstreets. So, of course, he came across a couple of so-called snake charmers, people who play music to make snakes wiggle, y'dig?. When they asked him to hang out with them he joined the troop for some lovely intercultural interaction, even attracting spectators himself as that white kid with his fancy recorder in the midst of a couple of Indian snake&reeds hustlers. Dilloway taped these sessions endlessly and when he got back home he knew that the right thing to do was to release them on his evercharming Hanson label.

As I mentioned earlier, the results are spellbinding and overtly raw. Dilloway captured the essence of life in the Nepalese backstreets for real, for a large part because of the joy and immense endurance the Nath Fam has. They gotta have gigantic lungs or something. The droning that goes on when those guys play their bamboo reeds is extremely hypnotical and every pinch of sound actually drones, whether it's a short note or a looooong one, it drones accordingly.

Volume II opens with ferocious bamboo reed spurts, called pungi's, causing an immediate psychedelic rush as the droning figures move through the dense Nepalese air right right into your cerebral cortex. When the premtals, a stringed percussion instrument, join in it gains a surreal quality. The droning of the pungi's fighting with the left-right wobbliness of the premtals. The pace is constant and adds to the hypnosis, ultimately seducing but never openly welcoming. There's rhythm and slight hints of melody although they never go nowhere and are mostly overwhelmed by the pungidrones. The second side offers a more varied and detailed affair, starting with some Luc Ferarri-style background noise while quickly buttoning up for some serious pungi/premtal action.

I've yet to delve into Volume I but knowing that Volume II is culled from leftovers and second tier material that really ups expectations. What Dilloway really shows with these Nath Family recordings is the sheer audacity and endless creativity some of the key-players in the United States of Noise have and keep on exploring. It's definately a sign of longtime endurance and with all these influences in Dilloway's pocket, you know his journey has just begun.