Buck Young — Proud Trash Sound
The Buck Young project is a centred around US noise makers Zoe Burke & Jason Crumer, with additional help/ chaos/ lopsided moodiness created by Matthew Schuff, Christian Mirande & Alan Jones. Proud Trash Sound is the projects one & only release thus far- it originally appeared in 2017 as a digital download, but this year has gone onto get both cassette & vinyl editions.
I’m reviewing the vinyl version of the album- the sturdy black vinyl pressing comes in a decidedly colourful cartoon illustrated sleeve, this features male & female humanoid dog-like characters dressed-up in cowboy get-up. Also with the release, you get a rather neat double-sided poster taking in more of playful & quirky cartoon artwork. This edition of the release came in a pressing of 200 copies, which seemingly can still be brought directly from No Rent Records band camp.
The albums eleven tracks literally go all over the place- both in their pace, content & mood; through there is always a keen sense of Americana everywhere you stop. The album opens with the title track – this is an amusingly nervy sonic tapestry of pig grunts, horse nays, cowboy talk, yodelling, & jitter static play- this is all edged moody western string simmering & twanging guitar drifts. Later on we have the wavering & unwell electro simmer, wayward drowsy western tinged female vocals, and drifting lap steel of "Bad Feeling" track- which from time-to-time is jarred by garbled male shouts, subdued noise picks, and a feeling of comic unease. One of a prime example of the records contrast is “Hang Em Hiii” & it’s follow-up “Murdoch” - the first track is a manic blend of chugging & twanging guitars, simmering noise banks, and female cowboy punk vocals wailing about ‘My pussy hurts’. While it’s follow-up is a soothing, yet artful seared bringing together of cascading piano textures & soothingly buzzing ‘n’ roasting noise textures- the tracks pretty damn great, and rather brought to mind the similar kind of thing Fog did on their Ether Teeth album.
It’s not very often that you come across a release from within the noise genre that effortlessly blends together playful-ness, keen-atmospherics, and oodles of creativity, but that’s exactly what Proud Trash Sound does. Let us hope there’s more Buck Young material in the pipeline!.