H E A R__I T

"Sonata for Loudspeakers"
-- Unwound
(800k)

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T A B L E__T A L K

Contemporary "classical" music: Why is no one talking about it? The discussion thrives in Table Talk

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Kate St.John
Second Sight
Thirsty Ear
(02/05/98)

DJ Shadow
Preemptive Strike
London
(02/04/98)

Mary Lou Lord
Got No Shadow
Sony WORK Group
(02/03/98)

Pearl Jam
Yield
Epic
(02/02/98)

Bob Dylan
Mid-Hudson Civic Center, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
January 27, 1998
(01/28/98)

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Sound Salvation
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Country blues
America's soft spot for the ambitious Southerner
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I N_B O O K S

Night Beat
By Mikal Gilmore
Deeply personal essays about rock music, from the Rolling Stone writer and author of the memoir "Shot In the Heart."
(02/06/98)

BY DAVID FENTON

Unwound is blue -- blue like an electrical fire, or a hailstone, or the center of a frozen lake. Their music is an angular, obtuse fusion of punk nihilism and calculated math-rock, transmitted in alternating currents of ear-splitting Loud and quivering, uneasy Quiet. On each of six albums, from their self-titled, delayed-release 1992 recording on Honey Bear Records to their latest, "Challenge for a Civilized Society," they've been frustrating, aggravating and often entirely devoid of warmth. With irregular beats, unnatural chords and 10-minute episodes of repeating, directionless dissonance, Unwound songs are as likely to careen into dead stops as they are to meander into light-flickering surges of noise. Others just hover, cycling through loops and layers of high-frequency amplifier wash and vaguely malicious samples.

Still reading? Then let me tell you a little not-so-secret: Unwound is also a very, very beautiful thing. (Why else would I be trying to scare you off?) Somehow, from somewhere deep inside their icy electric shellac, this trio has consistently managed to mine a vein of unpolished but inspired melodicism, sometimes crude and delivered at maximum volume (as on 1995's "The Future of What" on Kill Rock Stars), at other times delicate and attached in fragments to slow, solemn dirges (see 1994's "New Plastic Ideas," also on KRS). The cold discomfort, the robotic repetition -- the total sonic devastation -- that's all just icing on the cake.

On "Challenge for a Civilized Society," Unwound starts off by hiding its jewels in a familiar wall of noise. "Data," the first track, is characteristically loud, fast and high-pitched, with a discordant, piercing guitar line by singe/guitarist Justin Trosper and uneven backbeat by drummer Sara Lund. Sound enticing? No? Well, consider this -- it's also sharp and melodic, with a chiming, manic, sirenlike urgency. "Side Effects of Being Tired," with hoarse, mixed-down vocals by bassist Vern Rumsey, achieves a similar level of impassioned drive, despite its brutish, straightforward rhythm and total lack of grace. Both songs typify the Unwound dynamic -- striking beauty underneath a veneer of cool, hard-edged indifference.

"Challenge for a Civilized Society" also finds melody stretched out over lengthy, atmospheric dirge -- Unwound's interpretation of the ballad. "Sonata for Loudspeakers" is just what it sounds like: a lush, extended instrumental with guitar and bass movements that seem to chart the high- and low-end capabilities of the amp and speaker under stress. "Lifetime Achievement Award" drones through 10 minutes of tape loops, sampled voices and repeating guitar riffs, but still manages to seem hypnotic rather than monotonous, and "Untitled" actually evokes the moodiness of a Sergio Leone soundtrack, with an uncharacteristically warm, almost conventional guitar progression.

OK, so there's Loud, and there's Quiet -- but what about the spaces in between? They're filled on songs like "Laugh Track" and "Meet the Plastics," where Unwound reluctantly proves its real complexity. Thanks to the sonic glue provided by Lund's and Rumsey's tight drum and bass combo, "Laugh Track's" clipped guitar strokes are as intense when they're not there as when they are -- likewise on "Meet the Plastics," where Trosper's guitar would be nothing but atonal fragments without the grounding cohesiveness of a solid low end. Forget their coolness, their hard angles, their affected disaffection -- Unwound's payoff is much more powerful than the walls they put up to hide it.
SALON | Feb. 6, 1998