With the same line-up as featured on their uncharacteristically accessible 2006 release Introduction, Red Gold is a six-track, 22-minute addendum that is equally divided between semi-structured but experimentally tempered instrumentals, and Mayo Thompson’s billows of sing-speak that drop creepy-crawlies all over otherwise terrestrial matter.
“Paris” is a fine example of the former – a tiptoeing harpsichord and accordion echo gingerly creep around colossal percussive steps – and “Easy Street” is the kind of dark, fat guitar churn that Sonic Youth cranks out when they’re showing off. Thompson moves away from the socioeconomic, metaphysical and historical thematic elements of Introduction.
“Oh I Was Bad” is a thinly backed jam about cards, numbers and treating your mother right. “The Essence of Life” is a Captain Beefheart-styled number that builds steam in spite of Thompson’s simple advice (again about being good to your ma and pa), and still manages to pull off a literate weightiness because of the metric abnormalities.
Only a band as endlessly intriguing as The Red Krayola could make you feel like you’re hearing something edgy and visionary as they fade out to the closing-time, piano-lounge notes: “I guess I’ll be going home now, nighty-night.
– Jonathan Easley
The Red Krayola (Drag City)