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Hash Jar Tempo: Under Glass

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Hash Jar Tempo,
"Labiomancy"

at a glance...

Hometown: Philadelphia, PA and Christchurch, New Zealand
Year Formed: 1995

Personnel:
Joe Culver -drums
John Gibbons -guitar
Michael Gibbons -guitar
Roy Montgomery -organ and guitar
Isobel Sollenberger -flute and voice
Clint Takeda -bass

Related Artists:
Bardo Pond, Roy Montgomery, Dissolve, Dadamah, the Pin Group, the Shallows.

Notes:
A couple years ago Jessica Bailiff sent a tape of her home-made recordings to Kranky records. The Kranky braintrust liked what they heard, hooked her up with Duluth, MN's Low, and she has made two albums to date in THEIR home. This is the second one.


Hash Jar Tempo
Under Glass
Drunken Fish, Released 1999

Consider for a moment the beauty of a lava flow - it's a riot of ceaselessly changing colors in inexorable motion. Hash Jar Tempo's music is a lot like that; it flashes with momentarily glimpsed hues and persistently mutating textures that flow with implacable force and radiate an immolating heat.

If you're familiar with the efforts of the group's component's efforts, it might help to know that the seven jams on Under Glass (your CD counter will only list six because "Atropine" and "In the Cells of Walken's Corti" were accidentally combined at the pressing plant) are less sludgy than Bardo Pond's but kick with a harder rhythmic drive than Roy Montgomery's solitary spacial explorations. It's also more focused and coherent than the first Hash Jar Tempo record. I'm especially drawn to the peristaltic organ pulse of "Labiomancy" and the pairing of cascading twelve-string chords and spiraling lead guitars on "Hymenoptera In Amber Crybaby," but this is one glass whose entire contents you'll want to drain.

If you like Hash Jar Tempo, check out:
Bardo Pond Set and Setting
Roy Montgomery Scenes From The South Island
Hash Jar Tempo Well Oiled
Jason Bill and Jack Rose Via St. Louis
Nels Cline & Devin Sarno Edible Flowers
Nels Cline & Thurston Moore Pillow Wand
Lee Ranaldo Amarillo Ramp

-- Bill Meyer

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