For their transatlantic split, Vermont's Matt "MV" Valentine and UK-based duo Sun Hoods (aka Sun Skeletons and Blackhoods) offer up shades of psych -- an hour of shimmering meditations and bubbling ragas. On side-a Valentine builds from a pair of covers, returning to Nikki Sudden for an extended take alongside Mississippi John Hurt, projecting smoky glimmers of folk and blues with a cosmic lilt. With side-b, the trip turns inward, Sun Hoods imparting an organic texture to their tracks with sounds that recall the heart and breath to create a sequence grounded more in the texture of life than the sweep of space.
"With Valentine's side, we get a person working through a foggy, half-forgotten, psych-indebted past where music continually collapsed and was rebuilt from its base elements. Sun Hoods take a more expressive approach, with ghostly textures and wide-eyed samples playing tag through a landscape of wobbly synths and futuristic backdrops. Through a shared musical lineage, we see and hear how these two perspectives offer complex and intimate interpretations of the same raw material -- they simply construct their songs at slightly different angles to each other." -Nooga
"MV absolutely rips on this one like Fripp meets J Mascis meets Neil Young, his trademark lunar blues style somehow taken to another level . . . some heady cosmic wayfaring with a potency the likes of which is scarce even in MV's back catalog. Sun Hoods have the daunting task of following that on the flipside, holding together with a more reserved acoustic style, at least at first -- things aren't quite what they seem -- there's a moody mysticism that gains momentum as the tape rolls on, bubbling and churning at the fringes, spilling into the foreground by the time closing weirdness sets in, juxtaposing tranquil Appalachian strum with eerie artifacts rattling in stereo. It's hypnotic and alluring, like a minimalist intersection of Six Organs and Sun Araw with a Deliverance-on-acid mentality. Consider Date Palms and Plankton Wat for more points of reference, but I think Sun Hoods are out there on their own, or at least more so than most." -Psi Lab
"Crash Symbols has an inherent wisdom to combine these two artists on one split release . . . sounds on both sides seem to have tentacles that run through the plastic housing of the cassette. Matt Valentine and Sun Hoods are really different, but in this instance there is a special connection." -Lost in a Sea of Sound
"Great cassette all around." -Dead Formats
Side A recorded + performed by Matt Valentine, Spring/Summer 2016
Green Extension Studio B / Brattleboro, VT
thebummerroad@gmail.com
mvandee.blogspot.com
Sun Hoods is SC + JC
Recorded by JC between Reading + Liverpool, 2016
Art by Liz and Dwight Pavlovic
Layout by Liz Pavlovic
lizpavlovic.com
released September 23, 2016