Zach Hill - Astrological Straits (2008)
This will not be the last time you hear me ramble about Zach Hill. Hill drums to the beat of his own... well, drum. Spastic and noisy and, broken down, super technical is the way it sounds. Zach Hill has drummed for about a thousand bands and musicians such as Marnie Stern, Tim Kinsella, No Age, Wavves, That guy from Tera Melos, Rob Crow of Pinback, Les Claypool, and even friggin' Joanna Newsom in the straight up noise experiment known as Nervous Cop. But this, this is Astrological Straits, the first thing I ever heard from Zach Hill and even though he doesn't really like the term Math Rock, this is what got me started with the genre. Astrological Straits is probably Hill's most mainstream album as it was not only released by Mike Patton's Ipecac Records but also features artists such as Les Claypool and Marnie Stern (as I mentioned above), Chino Moreno of the Deftones (and Team Sleep which also had Zach Hill on drums), Tyler Pope of !!! and LCD Soundsystem and a key change more of kinda big name cats in the indie world I guess (if you count RX Bandits, The Advantages, The Flying Luttenbachers or No Age as big names). Well, whether or not it's got a big name and acts on the insert, it's still no radio friendly material. I remember finding this album listed in a skateboard magazine that had made a comment about how this isn't your mom's mini van music as she picks up the kids from soccer practice or something. It's lack of 4/4 was also mentioned of course. This album opened up a whole new world for me and got me really interested in Zach Hill's stuff as well as math rock and drumming in general. Hill released another solo album just this year called Face Tat and I am patiently waiting for my copy of the new Hella album Tripper in the mail right now as I write this. I'll talk more about Zach Hill and other projects related to this Sacramento, Californian that I may of missed or forgotten to mention soon enough. Anyways, here's Astrological Straits! Nuff said.
Similar acts/sounds: Hella, Tera Melos, Giraffes? Giraffes!, Marnie Stern, & other Zach Hill projects obviously
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