Growing

It’s yet another label for the Brooklyn duo of Kevin Doria and Joe Denardo, but it remains business as unusual. Following the clear trajectory begun with Color Wheel and continued on Vision Swim, this EP offers four tracks joined "in media res,” with the guitar and bass sounds already midway through some turbulent mutation. "Swell,” true to its title, reaches ever upwards for an increasingly whiter noise that never manages to completely obliterate the vibrating undertones. "First Contact” follows a fragmented series of guitar figures as they flutter above a repeating pulse of ultra-phased bass notes. The title track sounds like a whole effects rack pulled through a subway tunnel until it disintegrates. Closer "After Glow” is the bent and swirling sound from a Kevin Shields wet dream. Growing may take their gear fetish quite seriously, forcing sound through an increasingly labyrinthine network of altering states, but their music rises above mere guitar shop test-driving. The pieces create a physical space that blurs the boundaries of technology and tone, eventually becoming its own new experience.