Spartak – Selected Recordings from 2010 – 2013

It’s been a while since I heard Spartak play in the Pot Belly, listening to their laptop-fed, guitar drone against abstract drums. I heard they were going to play at YAH, and I was fortunate enough to stumble upon their show and pick up a copy of the Selected Recordings. The album is filled with with muted and filtered loops accompanied by a mix of acoustic and electronic drums. ‘Domestique’ is a speedy synth track, filled with repetitive mechanical clicks and whirrs. ‘Catch/Control (Icarus Mix)’ is an abstract jazz drum track layered with watery loops. The album is a sampler, with each track containing little experiments to find sounds that work. The variations make for an eclectic mix of tracks which shows what this duo (trio?) are capable of achieving.

The Spheres – Audible Lines

I stumbled into their show near the end of the You Are Here festival by accident. The Spheres are a trio made of drums, guitars (sometimes with cello bows), violins, pianos, and other small noisemakers to produce long ambient post-rock wind-ups, always finishing like a wave of drums and power cords on the shore. Audible Lines sounds as it does on the stage, which is rare for a band in my experience.