Gorge Trio - Open Mouth O' Wisp

  by Daniel Cressey

published: 12 / 6 / 2004

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Review

Quite an intriguing album from Gorge Trio this one. On first listen it just sounds like a bunch of people tuning up their instruments and you wonder if just they’ve just recorded the bits before and after the actual songs. But on repeat listening it shows a greater depth than you’d first expect with moments of quite delicate beauty. A purely instrumental release and the third album from the self proclaimed "self-organising future intelligence" which includes members of Deerhoof and the Natural Dreamers. There are 22 tracks here but only one of them is longer than three minutes and ten are sub-60 seconds. Like a sound track to a movie you’ll never quite understand, 'Open Mouth, O Wisp' screeches and strums along rapidly, changing direction, pace and volume just when you think you might have it figured out. Eventually the listener is just forced to sit there and accept it on its own terms which do then prove rewarding. Frustratingly however, it never quite breaks out into the full-blown songs you can’t help but feel are somewhere just below the surface.

Track Listing:-

1 A Comedy In Sun
2 Memo To an Apparition
3 Plum Sign
4 Words
5 The Invisible Student
6 Intimate Addition
7 Dawn of a Piccolo
8 Roof Halves and Dewdrop Gems
9 The Lurker
10 Triangles
11 Youth Island
12 Divining a Hot Spot
13 Living With Tigers
14 The Spa Bird
15 Paris Trap
16 That Pilot Set
17 Bitter Drum
18 Masks for Quilts
19 Health Seekers
20 The Age of Almost Living
21 Open Mouth, O Wisp
22 Treasure House In Amber