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Tuesday, November 09, 2004
ROCK 'N' ROLL BON MOTS #023

One of the great things about Carla Bozulich's Red-Headed Stranger is that it points to a way forward for noise. It is has the pretty dream-pop songs of MBV mixed with the extended songforms and textures of Mogwai and Slint. I don't think anyone's done this before, but regardless, Carla's done it really well, and it's where I'd like to see noise go. The current crop of noise bands, the spazzcore bands, are just boring now. There's nothing Ex-Models do that Behead the Prophet didn't do better 10 years ago.

In the midst of the odd textures, the drones and the buzzes, Carla's stubborn tonality, mixed with atonality, and Nels' insistance on melody, mixed with rhythm and texture and noise, stand out in a quite wonderful way.