REVIEW: O PIONEERS!!! / THE MEASURE [SA] SPLIT

The laundromat can not be overstated in terms of its importance to enjoying music. It’s not just a place where the detergenty task unfolds (before the folding), it’s a place of focus. Of stasis, as the chore at hand really is that – a chore – and it's nearly always a place where one goes prepared for the time to be spent. It’s also one of the few remaining chambers of cyclic white noise in this, the age after the factory. Spins. Rinses. Washes. Soaks. Drys. Washers stammering forward with hectic shifts as the final moments of their task centrifuges wet drum innards. Competing cycles and sounds as rivets protest how their denim drags them around and small flotillas of change try endlessly to ride the conveyor humps into loop-de-loop.

In this environment there is a palette of patterns to sample and tune in and out – nearly enough to find a new rhythm section for any recording. So too, does the shortness of the loops encourage the dedication to a single track to see how it will react with each additional washer and dryer you let into the metal mix. Now empty. Now switch loads. Now suddenly folding, and everything is tuned out. Nothing but you and O Pioneers!!! as socks are matched, undershirts lamented for their ever enlarging pit stains, treasured tees folded and jeans given a second run for added fiber tightness.

Now out of the noise entirely, where not even tuning out is necessary. Spare change in your pocket and Pepsi on the mind, it can’t help but be noticed how much sugar there really is in the guitars, nearly as much as hoarse rallying in the throat. Outside. Soda Jerks visible in the window. Someone else’s afternoon mix leaking out the weather stripping into your repeat-one. Maybe another walk around the block, one more cycle, before you head in. Ride that sad pony one more time. Recommended.

(note: the other side isn't a local jammah, but we're pretty sure it's still good).

Stream: O Pioneers!!! - Various Tracks