TWO TRACKS OF distorted crud hiss and grind against one another with a lo-fi hum. A high-pitched blast tears through static to produce foggy, wounded textures.
Droning notes are strummed, tweaked and scratched into scorching frenzies, producing feedback that coils upon itself to create a ringing, impenetrable wail. Disfigured fragments lurch forward and ride out a full track-length by feeding off of the resonance of a couple of plucks.There are hints that typical musical implements create some of the art; the rest sounds like the work of possessed power tools.
Welcome to the sonic no man’s land designed by Reverse Mouth. It’s a test of the limits of taste; an unspoken barometer of how much abrasion can be consumed and spat back out in one song and how much of this a listener can take.With a discography built out of clatter and an instinctive sense of unpredictability, Reverse Mouth’s serrated approach provides a maddening diversion from the common perceptions of what music can be.
Composed of Sofia Zoitu and Panagiotis Spoulos, Reverse Mouth began its excavation into experimentalism in 2005 in Athens, Greece.The project’s origins were appropri ately ramshackle: During a visit to a friend, the two picked up and played some instruments that were lying around, making sure to keep the volume as low as possible. After this initial foray, the duo implemented a wild range of devices—cassette decks, televisions, reel-to-reel tapes and toys—into its repertoire of usual instruments and started designing songs. Today, Reverse Mouth’s sets are comparatively stripped, using only electric guitars and a few stomp boxes it engages in what Spoulos calls “the challenge of the naked sound through feedback explorations.” The live set is a single slithering jam.
Reverse Mouth remains somewhat removed from the music of its city. “We both grew up in Athens. There never was much of a scene here or at least we never felt it that way,” says Spoulos. “We have a handful of friends who play cool music in Greek bands but their sound is totally different from ours. Not that we consider ourselves somewhat outsiders, [we] just never had the mood to be part of it.”
The duo works subversively in fitting with its unusual output.The band is prolific, having released at least three pieces a year since 2006 (the peak was 11 in ‘07) on over 10 la bels, yet its discography has been largely relegated to tapes and CD-Rs. Searching for information about the band is difficult: Aside from its home page, the only information about Reverse Mouth out there amounts to a few reviews and blog posts. Despite what the sharpness of records like The Confusion of the Sound of Confusion (Spoulos calls it “harsh electronic noise”), he points to the “folky guitar songs” of Ballades pour un Patroite to identify the range of the group’s artistic ambitions.
Perhaps noise is the right word. Mouth’s music doesn’t live to champion the harmonious side of rock ‘n’ roll but rather to get inside its uninhibited spirit. Trying to understand this in conventional terms yields little understanding.The rush comes from Mouth’s enigmatic handling of the proceedings. Even amidst the anarchy of its oeuvre, the group maintains a sense of humor when it comes to the taxonomy issues of its work. In separate spots, a MySpace page classifies the band as “ghettotech” and “black trance.” Speaking on the latter term, Spoulos says, “It’s a bit sarcastic ‘cause lots of bands tag their music with innovative musical genre terms. Black Trance was the title of a minimal garbage retarded electronica tape we released in 2006 and we named it that way because of that sarcasm.”
Zoitu thinks of his band’s current material as “more strict, bold and liberated.We have a much clearer view of what our music is all about.We know our equipment way better.” With Butara Kavla, Reverse Mouth’s first studio LP, on the way, why must it keep concocting this chaos? “Need,” responds Spoulos. “The need of searching in you and digging something up, the need to create something beautiful or ugly, the need to shout ‘fuck you!’, the need to feel you’re doing something, the need of feeling vibrant, the need to feel in love. Music helps you float when you’re in love.”
> Reverse Mouth
July 5, Silent Barn, 915 Wyckoff Ave. (at Hancock St.), Queens, no phone; 7, $TBA.
