The Cherry Point – “Live at Camp Blood, 7/11/04”

Phil Blankenship was originally born into this world as Lefthanddecision, a clean, tight, meticulous, downright compositional project that drew accolades. Years later, he shed the high-gloss liquid-crystal skin, donning a rusty suit of armor instead, allowing all its jagged points to cut into his exposed innards. He shambled through the town as The Cherry Point, bringing a lo-fi expulsion of animal ferocity to a populace ill-equipped to defend itself.

I'm intrigued by the fact that many noise initiates seem to change styles sooner after beginning, from high-speed and spastic cut-ups to dense, pressurized, nearly motionless whiteout. Projects like Sewer Election, Oscillating Innards, and Lefthanddecision started out fast and technically “accomplished,” but later expressing a deep and abiding love for the wall of noise, trying it only after they had more experience to really do it right. It must seem absurd to someone first coming to noise to think that something that sounds superficially like a TV tuned to a dead channel (remember those? Hint: they’re pre-cable) would be harder to accomplish than something that requires constant attention to 20 different effects boxes. It’s the first of many zen riddles of noise music: why is it harder to stand still than it is to run at top speed?

This recording from Camp Blood isn’t quite static enough to be called a “militant wall,” seeing as there are a few change ups, one blast of uneasy silence, and a little more modulation than you’d expect. Since it was recorded in 2004, this might reflect an older, less “pure” aesthetic. It’s not less awesome, though! You know good hard noise when you hear it…you don’t need me to tell you why it rules – it just kicks ass. The Cherry Point gives us the first of hopefully several pure, wind-blinding noise tracks that don’t require me to go into deep analytical detail about compositional structure or aesthetic points of departure and instead allow me to bandy around words like “this rules!” or “fuck yeah!”

So, um, fuck yeah!