Featuring 12 tightly wound fragments of brittle abstract twin guitar, impellent rhythm, and absurd, imagistic lyricism, Mating Surfaces is the second full length from Portland, Oregon’s Lithics – out now on Kill Rock Stars.
Lithics exist in a nervous fragmented world, a propulsive futuristic hell where anything can be consumed at any time, where any sound from any era can be conjured and reproduced and yet most of what we are stuck with seems like a trite reproduction of a sentiment long lost. Lithics fight this impossible dreary reality with a bold minimalist vision, Can I be myself? A stern danceable sound that summons cut up snapshots of Su Tissue and Mark E Smith, an imagined landscape where Captain Beefheart hits that 99 Records Too Many Creeps beat.
This is the sound of possibility. A total collaborative vision: Aubrey Hornor’s stark stilted vocals intoning over her and Mason Crumley’s wired guitar parts, like lightbulb flashes and the whir of insects unspooled and playing off each other. Bob Desaulniers’ basslines give both structure and dissonance to the endeavour, and along with Wiley Hickson on drums, this is a rhythm section recalling art damaged yet danceable noise made in the detritus of failing cities in the late 70s/early 80s (The Lower East Side, Cleveland, Manchester…). Except Lithics is happening now, a continuing part of the vital art punk DIY underground in Portland, Oregon.
Lithics create a world that seems like it is collapsing as it’s being built. Mating Surfaces is an unnerving sound, total in its commitment to a specific vision, DIY minimalist art punk that speaks to the fact that whenever someone says the underground is dead it just demonstrates that they are just too past it to know any better.
