#bongwater

The two players are long-time friends and mainstays of New York City’s 1980s and 1990s indie/experimental scene. Moore made his name in Sonic Youth, first as a noisy, disruptive punk, later as the main generator of a silvery, lyrical guitar tone that is instantly recognizable whether in the later SY albums, his solo work, his free improvisations across jazz, noise and drone and here in this collaboration. Kramer is a multi-instrumentalist and a member of such bands as Bongwater, Shockabilly and Gong. He also played on a more occasional basis with the Butthole Surfers, Ween, Half Japanese and John Zorn. Still, he is perhaps best known for his production work; he shaped the sounds of slowcore pioneers Galaxie 500 and Low. Thus, while Moore’s contributions here are instantly recognizable—that guitar sound only comes from one place—Kramer’s are more elusive, a twinkle of piano in the maelstrom, an enveloping ambience of (maybe?) synth tones, the thud and ritual of percussion. In the opener “Urn Burial” the whistling treble of church organ threads its way through clanging guitar strums and martial, stirring drums. It’s cheerful but with a menacing undertone, a Pied Piper’s song leading the innocent into danger.

“The Redness in the West” takes its name from the Cormac McCarthy novel Blood Meridian, an evocation of violence and brutality in the American West. The song itself is ominous, arising out of a swell of strings, guitar notes crashing in with percussive furor; it is easy to imagine terrible events occurring against a backdrop of great beauty, the red light of sunset, the red stain of blood.

“They Came Like Swallows” is, perhaps, the most Sonic Youth-like of these songs, its guitar gently ramping the tension, the glitter of high notes studding the mesh. A sinuous thread of melody dodges in and out of view, a keyboard motif bobbing and weaving in the mix. The title is another literary reference, this one from William Maxwell’s 1930s novella about the Spanish flu, another dire period for little children and all living things. And, in fact, while the starting point may have been Gaza, the album’s broad reach suggests that abuse of the vulnerable is more or less a constant in human history.

Moore and Kramer avoid overt references, mostly, though the rolling, sweeping, Dirty-Three-esque “The Oceans Are Crying” does contain some ocean birdsong. But mostly the events that this album references are too weighty and too awful to tie directly to music. Listening to They Came Like Swallows is more like attending a memorial than watching a documentary; it’s all about the aftermath of war and suffering.

The album—and indeed the idea of collaboration—came out of the disc’s final track, a cover of Joy Division’s “Insight” which Moore and Kramer recorded at the very beginning of this process. It’s the only track with vocals and certainly the most song-shaped and rock-oriented of these cuts. And yet, it, too has a prayerful serenity, a coming to terms with the worst parts of being human. “I’m not afraid anymore,” it ends in murmured resignation, the children still dead, the war still ongoing, but the music, somehow seeking light and redemption.