Review: Winter’s Treasures – Out of Reach and Useless (Phons, Oct 29)

Though I’m definitely a fan of his solo work, Liam Kramer-White excels in improvised duo contexts, whether with Stella Silbert as Beige, with Arkm Foam as LMFAO, or most recently with Dean Fazzino as Winter’s Treasures. (It also shouldn’t be overlooked that there’s something about Massachusetts that continues to draw like-minded oddballs to set up their tables across from one another… for more subversive jams try on Lean, Variant State, or Foom & Foam for size.) Packaged in a gorgeous screenprinted clear case, Out of Reach and Useless feels like a breath of fresh air. Fazzino is up to his usual tricks—the scattershot circuit wrack will be immediately familiar to fans of the lovely Robert Fuchs roster or the first few Spate releases—but here they’re controlled and thoughtful. The two artists play a good-natured game of tug-of-war with the intensity of their collective conjurings: in “Born Yesterday,” feedback and sine tones temper a white-hot electrical fire, which subsequently engulfs everything to kick off the raucous “Law School.” It’s an excellent tape front to back, but the real standout is the surging closer “Loss of Member Support.” Kramer-White and Fazzino strike a perfect balance between responding to each other and simply working up a racket. I can’t stop replaying this one.