DVOA vs NOT BREATHING - A Fire in the Bronx Zoo

Songs: 7 Time:  51:13

This joint effort between Mark Spybey and Sheldon Drake (DVOA) and Dave Wright (Not Breathing) was a pleasant surprise.  A Fire in the Bronx Zoo is a mood inducing EP, featuring 7 tracks of light experimental instrumentals.  As far as albums such as this go, I must truly find something within them that strikes me as being interesting.  What interests me the most about this EP is the subtly soothing nature of all the tracks.  A Fire in the Bronx Zoo is the perfect album to pop into the CD player at bed time.  Alston Fel. is a short intro piece featuring an airy, near carnivalish, sequence that slowly grows stronger until it reaches its peak and dismisses itself into track 2, Sinkhole.  Sinkhole is a longer piece which begins with hollow chugging, reminiscent of a train slowly making its way through an echoing cavern.  As the track progresses, the chugging turns into a flat, monotonous, low ended scraping type sound that builds and builds, becoming higher pitched and eventually fading away in oblivion.  Unknown Kadath is a 13 minute track that continues the same pattern of ‘stuck sounds’ but add more variety through an array of fresh sounds that weave in and out, never leaving the piece in a state of stagnation.  The first piece to actually contain somewhat of a beat is Azathoth Venom.  This track consists of a simple aquatic beat on top of which a laser styled, pulsing rhythm is eventually laid.  A more dominant beat fades in and out of this piece, lending to its diversity.  A Fire in the Bronx Zoo never startles the listener with clamorous intrusions or over the top programming, but rather opts for a more artful approach to experimental noise.
 
INVISIBLE RECORDS                      Dead Voices on Air are:                        Not Breathing is:
P.O. Box 16008                                      Mark Spybey / Sheldon Drake  Dave Wright
Chicago, IL 60616                                 e-mail: abrader@ultranet.ca                 e-mail: kali23@azstarnet.com
INVISIBLE homepage:                       Dead Voices on Air homepage:          Not Breathing homepage:
http://www.invisiblerecords.com      http://www.dvoa.com                           http://www.esophagus.com/nb/index.html