Skill 7 Stamina 12 / Same Things / Toilet - split LP - Junior Aspirin Records
Skill 7 Stamina 12 MP3-download trove located HERE
I can’t fathom what any of the three groups comprising this LP have in common with each other, save possible geographic/scene-tied coincidences.
Skill 7 Stamina 12 are blessed with the most-but-somehow-least-memorable band name since All Natual Lemon And Lime Flavors and employ busy shuffle-drumming and insanely subtle bric-a-brac to get the job done.
Same Things represent a sound I’d equate most closely with Guapo, Dirty Three and Spaghetti Western (the short-lived band, not the film genre).
Toilet? Shit, they’re another can of wriggling worms altogether, sawing, slapping, clanking, thumping and BANGing while a patient drone powers the whole enterprise from afar (sorta like most people assume god does). Listening to them is like hearing Hoor-Paar-Kraat while your balls are literally being split in two by a ban saw, only it’s painful. Spray a can of paint right into your ears, nose and mouth and … well you’ll probably die.
But I digest: Yep, not much commonality to be found among the three bands that decided to put together an LP … together, but I’m oddly buoyed by the prospect of one album containing three different worlds, totally disparate from one anther yet somehow dependent on each other for survival and, yes, even existence.
Oh, and all three of these bands, if I’m not mistaken, share members, so let’s not go assuming anything as we head into this review, OK? Get it, got it, good …
Back to Skill 7 Stamina 12, a curious brew that counts a hyper post-mushroom-jazz/-Chad Smith (RHCP) drummer as its dominant force: What were they thinking, putting so much production into the drums and fading the rest into oblivian? Everything else included in the mix — echo-blessed vox, organ; I think that’s it — is dialed down to an extreme degree.
Such an unusual choice/strategy; while it bothers me a bit, I can’t say the music is as burdened by the aesthetic choices as one might think. The beatsmith keeps the mood light, fresh and loose as a newborn goose, and when the penultimate sounds begin pushing their way into the forefront, as on “Amy Winehouse’s Lack of Personal Hygeine,” suddenly more weight is lended to the proceedings — it’s as if all the waiting and scraping the surface only render it that much more enjoyable to taste, touch and smell like a fresh-from-the-dryer sweatshirt (huff that shit).
There’s a lot of madness happening parallel to what I’m hearing in S7S12′s din, including Sports, pretty much any Load Records act (though Mindflayer this ain’t), Gang Wizard et al, but the difference lies in the subtlety, which most bands don’t have the stomach for.
Same Things are all about setting the scene. Strings are slid, finger cymbals are mini-crashed, other strings are plucked, beats are boxed, basslines are brought and … cats meow, I think; it’s tough to discern exactly what’s going on with these vocals (though I assure you My Brother The Native beat them to the punch) and I’m not even going to venture a theory as to how they were achieved. Just go with it, and tell ‘em Mike Patton/Mr. Bungle, Hamster Theatre, Degenerate Art Ensemble and Husky Rescue sent you. Go on, GET!
