WATER DAMAGE - Instruments 2LP

Highly recommended.

We just made the previous double album available for preorder, plus Repeater and 2 Songs also.

"Consistency and continuity are what make the backbone of Water Damage. The Austin-based psych/drone-rock collective consists of noise rock veterans and experimental musicians from bands like Marriage, Expensive Shit, USA/Mexico, Black Eyes and Swans, some of whom are in their third decade. Water Damage functions more as a commune with variable line-ups from five to eleven people, usually with multiple bassists and drummers. Even though they are often compared to Tony Conrad’s collaboration with German krautrock legends Faust, Outside the Dream Syndicate, their understanding of motorik rhythm comes mainly from later Fugazi albums. That’s why their albums’ titles, like 2022’s Repeater or 2023’s 2 Songs, nod to the post-hardcore band from Washington D.C.

Their latest entry, Instruments, with four ‘reels’ clocking around twenty minutes each, deepens the formula of patterned heaviosity (“maximal repetition, minimal deviation,” as the group are fond of repeating) with even more patience and the addition of two fellow travellers, Patrick Shiroishi on baritone saxophone and David Grubbs on guitar.

The opening ‘Reel 28’ is sluggish krautrock, where Shiroishi’s saxophone doesn’t fly around in free jazz style but instead helps to stabilise the whole foundation of the song and support the motorik. Although you can observe slight changes in tempo, as if the beast were coming alive, you wish the repetition would never cease and continue ad infinitum. The patience and intensity of how Water Damage explores one droning note or just a single rhythm recalls especially the work of France, although the French motorik rock outfit scoured the more medieval and folk side of drone music." - The Quietus