Though they’ve only been playing together for a year and a half, West Coast duo Sheep Ditch are already shaking things up. Foster Park Bowl / Perkins Cul de Sac comprises their first all-acoustic material, recorded outdoors in Ojai and Oxnard respectively. I know of both Jay Howard and Scott Miller from other projects, albeit ones drastically different and much louder—Howard of Circuit Wound fame and Miller the original guitarist/vocalist of Cattle Decap—and there’s something extra special about this quiet, ambling tape coming from these guys. The two sides deploy the same laid-back, anything-goes approach to improvisation in distinct locations. For “Foster Park Bowl” it’s a deserted amphitheater, the curve of the hill carrying distant noises in to join the musicians as they make use of unidentified instruments and everyday objects. Guests Rob Magill and Max Pippin lend hands to “Perkins Cul de Sac,” an onsite ode to the titular dead end. Throughout the C60 there’s a soothing sense of wide-open space around and above the main event, dwarfing yet nestling. The stakes couldn’t be lower and it’s exactly what the doctor ordered. Moments of pure magic are peppered throughout: I especially love the bit about ten minutes into “Perkins,” when the quartet gets some full band electricity going and works up a sleepy brut-jazz racket with shades of Jackie-O.
Noise Not Music 