Certain duos were always meant to be. Mark Anderson and Anthony Guerra have been crucial parts of Australia’s off-kilter underground scene for the better part of this century so far, whether lending their shambolic instrumental talents to various avant-rock efforts both together (Mysteries of Love) and separately (Greymouth, Love Chants) or holding it down in even more abstract contexts (Guerra’s improvised meetings with Joel Stern are eternal favorites of mine). Their newly minted collaboration, which seamfully melds those two realms of interest, found its footing with the spellbinding Earth Diffusion CD on Index Clean last year. The renowned Melbourne text-sound source was a perfect platform for the pair’s surreal voice-based sketches, each fleeting collage a lush universe of moans, groans, and psychedelic undertones. Stationed on the opposite side of the globe, Stockport’s Regional Bears has a proven track record of letting promising projects shine on longform canvases, so I was excited by the prospect of a continuous forty-minute piece from these musicians, and the only thing River Transcription fails to do is disappoint. Recorded in a single session on the shore of the Tukituki river, the sun-bathed suite seems to melt time; when my deck stopped I thought something was wrong with the tape, because there was no way it was over already. And yet there’s not a moment of hustle or hurry to be found throughout the drowsy meditation. Anderson and Guerra are content to be mere features in a much larger soundscape, bleary-eyed rivermen whiling away an amber autumn day as the current ambles by. Stones slide and scrape, breezes rush and birds sing, a guitar briefly noodles before deciding it would rather bask in the grass, shouts ring out from across the water: time to turn in.
Noise Not Music 