Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Formed: 1994

Personnel:
Nels Cline -guitar
Devin Sarno -bass

Bands in the family :
Quartet Music, the Nels Cline Trio, Banyan, Thurston Moore / Nels Cline, Geraldine Fibbers, Mike Watt, Crib, Waldo The Dog Faced Boy.

Whatever your expectations of how an electric bass and guitar duo might sound, Nels Cline and Devin Sarno will confound them. Both players eschew gratuitous displays of technique; they're more concerned with arranging cool sounds than with letting us know how many notes and chords they can play.

Both players gravitate towards distortion and such highly amplified sonic extremities that an unprepared listener might not even be able to identify their instruments when confronted with the huge, hovering soundscapes on Edible Flowers. Over the course of eleven minutes "The Moon Is Your Moon" sounds like a symphony for jet engines, a reversed tape of free-falling dive-bombers, and a demon choking as he gargles a particularly nasty hangover cure. "Forgive" occupies another zone, one where delicately picked patterns and jagged fuzz-tones drizzle over throbbing low-end sonic beams.

Sarno and Cline both play in rock bands; they know the value of thoughtful organization and incorporate it into their sprawling, endlessly evolving creations, thus ensuring that you'll return to them after their novelty has worn off.

If you like Nels Cline and Devin Sarno, check out:
Jason Bill & Jack Rose Via St. Louis
Hash Jar Tempo Under Glass
Nels Cline and Thurston Moore Pillow Wand
My Bloody Valentine Loveless
Sonic Youth Confusion is Sex

psst...you might wanna check out our indie rock abode for more features on (guess what) indie rock bands.

-- Bill Meyer