Icewater Scandal

No Handle

BY Vish KhannaPublished Sep 1, 2004

Brooklyn, NY-based record label the Social Registry presents yet another local band who represent the next generation of art-damaged rockers to follow NYC pioneers Sonic Youth. Though not as aggressive as their label contemporaries Blood On The Wall, Icewater Scandal possess a similar found sound, noise-rock aesthetic that is surely derived from its core members’ educational background. Sean Maffucci, DW Burnam, and Travis Redington were all students of the School Of Visual Arts, who began experimenting with electric guitars. After a live show under the moniker AM Radio, Andrea Hansen emerged from the audience to join the band and the line-up recorded an EP with Jerry Teel (Yeah Yeah Yeahs). This recording soon caught the ear of Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, who offered to produce the band’s debut album at SY’s Echo Canyon Studios in 2001. The result is the six-song, 50-minute no handle — an exploratory guitar record in the tradition of the most experimental work of Dream Syndicate and Sonic Youth that flirts with traditional rock structures. It’s self-indulgent in the most accessible of ways and should bring more ears to the pocket of energy the Social Registry has tapped into.
(Social Registry)

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