Anne Heller
Fountain of Annihilation
Crunchy Food Records

Completely recorded in South Austin, this is a very harrowing, very out record. The title track covers all of side one, and it is a heaving, heavily-effected monolith of sound, which as the needle draws closer to the inherent black hole of the record, seems to pulverize all the sounds and grooves and then shoot them back out at you as tiny sonic shrapnel.

Side two is broken up into more readily digestible pieces, and showcases Ms. Heller's ability to coax sounds out of clarinet, guitar, theremin, keyboard, castanets, and tapes, all to varying degrees of effect. A track like Vestigial Digit features some low-in-the-mix (and somewhat uncertain) guitar laid under a wigged and sinister keyboard quiver. Phosphene Damage on a Primal Wave harkens back to the tapestry of side one, and proves that this sort of sound crafting is Ms. Heller's strong suit. The tape insects of the last piece let you down and show you the door back out to the silence.

Copyright © 1998 Andy Beta