Alright lets get it over right at the beginning. Ten East are stoner punk royalty, the kind’ve lineup that seems too ludicrous to even dream might be possible. We’ve got Greg Ginn (Black Flag) on organ/guitar, Scott Reeder (Kyuss) on bass, drummer Bill Stinson (Chuck Dukowski Sextet), guitarist Mario Lalli (Fatso Jetson/ Desert Sessions), Bryan Giles (Last of the Juanitas) and multi instrumentalist Gary Arce (Yawning Man/ Dark Tooth Encounter). That’s a lot of guitars, and a lot of talent. Previously Brant Bjork (Kyuss/ Fu Man Chu) played with them, yet their approach is relaxed, with a revolving lineup – a collective approach to playing music. There’s no mistake this is jam music, these long instrumental grooves, simultaneously muscular and aggressive, yet also hypnotic, psychedelic and spacey. There are moments where it gets positively atonal, yet they refuse to lose the structural elements of rock for any length of time. They also love the riff, and Arce’s familiar desert twang is very prevalent, yet this project is much more open to the collaborators, particularly Ginn’s fractured leads and Giles near hysterical breaks. The approach is unexpected, Stinson and Arce jamming together, with overdubs farmed out to the other contributors. It doesn’t sound like this, as this band is tight and everything feels so unified. With moments of big sweeping fuzz guitar, this is probably the closest of Arce’s projects to the stoner rock tag, yet there are also savage bursts of punk, and the aforementioned psychedelic elements. It really is a unique brew. This is their second album on Lexicon Devil, a label that seems to delighting in putting a microscope to this this hitherto unknown yet highly incestuous scene, and revealing unexpected gems like Ten East.
- Bob Baker fish
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