About King Blood

Little anonymous fuzz guitar rudiment blowdown from ex-Snake Apartment guitarist Ryland Wharton (also the man behind the excellent Skulltones and Twonicorn labels). As King Blood, he lays down eight instrumental four-trackers rendered over a three-year period, nothing but guitar, bass and cymbal to keep time, and in that space the artist gets real, with simple themes repeated in a noisy, low-rent, yet meditative space. For as thick as these vibes get, the music itself is not necessarily aggressive, which is why these big, billowing songs sound gentle and bluesy and introspective, even in the overblown treatment most of them receive. Early Wooden Shjips or the Purling Hiss LP (and above all, Les Rallizes Denudes) would be good signposts for this album, but without the obvious psych moves like wah-solos and acid burn motifs, or the heavy drumming to keep time; King Blood wants to get you down by volume, and in that it is a drifting, uncompromising, diffuse and very loud success. 100 copies for this world, in paste-on sleeves ? a few contain a silkscreened design on Stonehenge paper that was allegedly runoff from a gallery exhibition held earlier this summer. Those are signed and numbered as well. (availability? ask the angels?)