The split release is an interesting phenomenon of independent music-- it's like a recommendation from a friend, a band you like endorsing a band they like. But while it seems like a new split single or EP sees release every day, split full-lengths aren't so common. There's a reason for this: EPs and singles tend to serve as stopgaps in the rock world, small offerings to keep the masses entertained and hungry between albums. Though dancier rock and file-trading are gradually taking over the underground, the album, for now, is still viewed by most as the definitive statement an artist can make, and sharing that statement with another artist isn't something I'm sure most bands would seriously consider. But Tyondai Braxton and Parts & Labor manage not just to successfully expand the split EP concept into a full album, they also make a cohesive, logical sounding record in the process.
It's split down the middle, with Parts & Labor taking the first half, and Braxton stretching out three compositions over the latter. Braxton, who asserted himself as a challenging, vital artist in his own right on last year's stunning debut History That Has No Effect, has a more obtuse muse than his partners in crime, but the two halves are so sonically of a piece with each other that his work never seems displaced. In fact, there's not even a break between the two sides, as Parts & Labor's last song, the jittery explosion "The Endless Air Show", segues directly into the motion sickness-inducing drum onslaught of Braxton's "Stand There", a titular retort to the album's opening track, "Don't Just Fucking Stand There".
That song has Parts & Labor's Dan Friel playing his guitar as though it were bagpipes, laying out a majestic drone over drummer Joel Saladino's reserved pulse and bassist BJ Warshaw's squelching electronics. The weirdly traditional Celtic melody can't help but sound at home in Friel's reedy guitar tone, and the band even brings in real bagpipes on "Jurassic Technology", highlighting just how effective Friel's technique is at imitating them. Parts & Labor offer a few vocal songs as well, gurgling like a Highland Brainiac on "Days in Thirds" and bursting with stuttering rock fury on the aforementioned "Endless Air Show". Friel and Warshaw mask their voices in electronic veils, barking with force, but melting into the music around them.
Braxton follows this up by drawing a long, slow vocal melody out over the frenetic backing of "Stand There", a catchy blast of frayed noise that serves as the record's high point. "Disintegrating Reels" sounds a lot like its namesake, a slow, shapeshifting monster of a track that showcases Braxton's facility with processing and looping. Ink-black guitars trickle over chopped and diced vocal samples, and as the piece staggers on, Braxton adds flute, cello, viola and trumpet in modest doses, creating a frenzy of agonized noise that lurches full bore into closer "Jackpot". "Jackpot" is full of fluttering piano beset by scrolling tape noise, like an old Disney score put through a paper shredder and haphazardly rearranged. It's unsettling, but pretty at the same time, an industrial sound that still manages to come off as playful and lighthearted before finally morphing into a kind of evil fantasia cut through with menacing vocals and fractured guitar.
And with that, Braxton closes the disc about as far into left field as you can get-- a pretty good place to end, as it seems like the place these two artists are likely to spend most of their time in the future. Parts & Labor are an exciting prospect, drone rock that's as much rock as drone, while Braxton's harshly experimental approach ought to continue yielding potent fruit for a long time to come. Braxton's debut album is still the best place to hear him first (if you can't make it to one of his mind-bending live shows, that is), but this is an intriguing, challenging album and an excellent introduction to two artists full of great ideas.
