The Fuck Chairs — Ascension (2016, self-released)
As a huge fan of the Dead C, any project featuring Bruce Russell, Michael Morley, or Robbie Yeats is certain to make these marginal ears perk up. I was recently made privy to Morley’s collaborative project with fellow Kiwi Morgan Oliver, The Fuck Chairs. Safe to say, I quickly begun exploring their already robust (25 releases since 2014) and rapidly proliferating body of work. My initial foray into TFC territory led me to throw the proverbial dart toward Ascension and safe to say, here at Marginal Brevity, we’re all happy with where that piercing projectile landed. Consisting of a singular 24 minute track, Ascension sees Morley and Oliver electing to forgo the traditional rock band approach entirely. Harsh 70s Reality it is not; the ambient work Morley has done under the Gate moniker is perhaps a bit closer. That said, The Fuck Chairs deviate from the sparser side of sound art on this release, opting to explore textures and motifs that would fit well alongside a good many Warp releases from the 1990s. Ascension is a wonderfully lo-fi electronic work, with the duo sounding something akin to a somber antipodean Autechre, who have chosen to ditch the superfluous embellishments. All in all a very listenable, deeply introspective, and wholly entrancing record from the globe’s southern hemisphere.
Marginal Brevity 