A Million Corpses of Dead Bees/High Road

VINYL FORMAT. Tipped Bowler returns to the fertile soil of New Zealand to cull two choice improvisations. On the A-side, Wellington's Nova Scotia delivers "A Million Corpses of Dead Bees", an eighteen minute free-rock burner. Growing from violin sine-squeak and distant shortwave, the piece gains momentum with its patient drumming and resolves into a saxophone swarm shot through with synthetic scrabble. On the reverse, Dunedin's Eye comes off colder and more aggressive. "High Road" throttles the listener with Schnitzler-ian electronics, militant percussion, and guitar strangulation before collapsing into coda of cymbal taps and glassy string-work. Rigorous yet unbound, these pieces shine a light on a musical community few of us can witness firsthand. Issued in an edition of 250 150-gram black LPs in elegant black-and-white matte sleeves screened with consummate skill by Alan Sherry of Siwa.