Baby? Baby Laugh / Baby Cry LP
New directions in music by Oakland avant maestros Erin Allen and Max Nordile. BABY? is an abstract fresco of guitar strings plinking and scratching, drums tumbling and collapsing, horns wailing and lamenting, and found-sound contrasts of water pouring peacefully and cop sirens reigning terror. While 98% of MRR readers won’t give this the time of day, 1% will turn this on and immediately turn it off after the first track or two, and finally there is the 1% that will complete it and maybe even go back and listen again. It’s classically not for everyone, and probably really only for Max and Erin as an expression of sound and friendship. What I love about these two as people and artists is that while we’re all here still listening to this, figuring it out and deciding if we like it, they’re just out there, making more of it, like perpetual creation machines. They probably recorded twenty more albums, finished 53 paintings, six zines, and went on tour four times while this LP was in the queue to be pressed (and probably even more as I was flipping to the B-side of it).