Sandy Ewen ‘You Win’ LP (Gilgongo)
As someone who has collaborated with Weasel Walter numerous times, Sandy Ewen is clearly a person of unshakeable fortitude. If you didn’t know, she’s mostly a guitarist of the improvised-noise variety, and she comfortably stretches out across the two long sides of the cleverly titled You Win. Her guitar comes in slow fits and swells here, periods of mostly-silence (or the occasional transient feedback tone) giving way to various low-res sounds: certain passages sound like the last inch of a Wendy’s Frosty being sucked through a straw, others recall the alien sound-effects used by Jimi Hendrix on Axis: Bold As Love, and there are some moments that have me imagining the loneliest Dead C practice session. I’m also reminded of Bill Nace, in the way that Ewen will play her guitar tabletop style in order to locate every crunchy moan that resides within it – I had to see if the two of them ever crossed paths, and the existence of a collaborative lathe between the two (from just last year) confirms it. In the right hands, the sound of a guitar’s input jack being mercilessly tortured can make for a satisfying soundtrack, a skill that Ewen has clearly spent a sizeable chunk of her time pursuing.
http://www.yellowgreenred.com/?p=12581
Available NOW on Gilgongo Records: https://gilgongorecords.storenvy.com/
Gilgongo Records 