DW018 Ashtray Navigations / Sugar Head Record
Over the past decade and a half, Phil Todd's long-lived & insanely prolific Leeds-based outfit has been boggling adventurous heads with infinite variations on its central uber-maximalist noise/psychedelic/ur-drone forms. AN have always been masters of the long take, and Sugar Head Record features just three mostly-Todd tracks: Disc 1 is entirely filled by "Sugar Head Music with Sines", an hour of undulating electronic tapestry swathed in layers of gooey psychedelic lava. Disc 2 leads with "Orange Matter Custard", nine minutes of Todd's patented modal guitar extremity, strings shredding off into pure electrification; and closes with the colorfully-titled "Toilet Training", adding regular collaborators Phil Legard (Xenis Emputae Traveling Band) and Melanie Crowley (Ocelocelot) for 43 minutes of glacially-paced swells of electrical haze. For already tuned-in households, a totally necessary release; for virgins, well, with AN it's all the deep end, so this is as good a place to dive in as any.