Leonardson and Barsotti have both fashioned their own peculiar sonic contraptions that provide all manner of congruently peculiar noises over the span of this disc.
Each track encompasses its own world, constructed of noises that are both highly physical and also difficult to trace back to an actual source. You can almost feel the itchy murmurs; the groggy, viscous sighs of flaccid springs; the dry-throated croak of something metal; and the loose, chewy swoops creeping along your skin, yet each brittle noise comes shrouded in utter befuddlement, as if emanating from some arcane, rusty machine whose purpose is completely incomprehensible. Everything sounds strangled, choked, compromised—there is clearly a struggle in getting these strange beasts to speak. The effort and force behind the production and control of each sound is completely tangible to the listener, but this is what makes the strange vocabulary of these pieces so compelling.
The general thrust of the album is amblingly gestural—like lab rats gnawing their way out of their cages, and through a musical-saw convention. Even the more ambient Yucca-Ranger-On-Frontiersman-Frame, which starts like hippies in hazmat suits playing radioactive tanpuras, erupts into a violent confrontation, with malevolent rabid squawks overtaking the aural field.
Sonically striking and completely unusual, Rarebit offers some unique and engrossing emotional terrain.
