Members Of Mutwawa Form Solo Projects, Get Weird And Harsh On Split Tape

by | Mar 21, 2014 | MUSIC

Don’t panic, experimental music lovers–Mutwawa are still a going concern. However, the super-busy duo of Jason Hodges and Gary Stevens are never going to be satisfied with only one (or two, or three) musical projects happening at a time. Therefore, they both have solo projects as well, and those solo projects released a split cassette earlier this month.

Don’t panic, experimental music lovers–Mutwawa are still a going concern. However, the super-busy duo of Jason Hodges and Gary Stevens are never going to be satisfied with only one (or two, or three) musical projects happening at a time. Therefore, they both have solo projects as well, and those solo projects released a split cassette earlier this month. The names of these projects both register somewhere on the grossness spectrum–Gary’s is called Rotted Ear, and Jason’s is called Brown Piss. I’ll leave it up to you which of those images seems more repugnant, but the appropriately-chosen title of their split, Rotted Piss, might be the gnarliest of all.

A word of warning–if you dig Mutwawa mainly because of their ability to create bizarre interplanetary dance beats, you won’t find too much to enjoy here. Rotted Ear and Brown Piss are both full-on harsh noise–each project contributes one eight-minute blast of sonic anarchy to this cassette. Rotted Ear starts out by lulling you into complacency with several minutes of quiet ambient hums, before suddenly cranking the volume with some serious construction-noise damage–so don’t be tricked into turning your car’s tape deck all the way up when you’re playing this one.

Brown Piss, on the other hand, doesn’t engage in any deception, starting things off with some oscillating feedback that eventually evolves into static, distorted vocal sounds, and even what sounds like a very overdriven drum-machine beat that starts around the five-minute mark. Yes, even on this 16-minute noisefuck explosion of an EP, there’s a little bit of dancing going on–if you can make it that far.

Stream the entire EP below, if you dare–and if you’re into it, you can pick it up as a name-your-price download from Bandcamp. Then again, we all know real OGs rock tapes, so if that’s you, you can order a copy of the Rotted Piss cassette from CNP Records for $6 by clicking HERE.

Marilyn Drew Necci

Marilyn Drew Necci

Former GayRVA editor-in-chief, RVA Magazine editor for print and web. Anxiety expert, proud trans woman, happily married.




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