#5 - Ryan & Steve

Blues Control

Puff

2007

Easily the lowest-fi this list goes, "Puff" is the deranged and minimal debut from Queens submerged psychedelic droners, Blues Control. Working as a duo with Russ Waterhouse on guitar and tape-loop drums and Lea Cho concentrating on the sublime organ tones. This album in particular inspired me to create my own music. I saw the looseness here, the freedom and transcendence that can occur through minimal and obscured means, it opened my eyes to new ways of creating an engaging sound. It's an important record for me because of this.

The album begins with the title track, beginning with delayed/reverb-laden percussive strikes that gradually ascend to be complemented by the trippy organ arpeggios during the back half. It's a broken and bizarre introduction to this depth-defying psych excursion. "End Zone" begins with a breathy reverb drone only to be immediately replaced with an ambient synthscape. As the song continues Waterhouse's guitar lines creep their way into the mix and eventually overtake the entire sound with a wailing and noisy ferocity that the front half never hinted at. "Always On Time", the longest track here, plays to the group's strengths and loops a gorgeous piano line that is repeatedly buried and obscured as other elements jut inward to occupy the newly cleared space. Then on the final track we're treated with one of the more elegant tunes, "Call Collect". Subtle and with a clock-like hypnotism, the track sways along with Waterhouse's delayed tape-based percussion and Cho's organ swells and synth ambience. Appropriately for the sound, the song eventually burns out on itself and fades away. Hypnotic transcendence is the goal for all of these tunes and Blues Control have the ideas and the sonic wherewithal to accomplish just that. This record is a private and subtle transcendence made on the smallest of scales. Simply otherworldly. -S.R.

This is one of the best voiceless albums I’ve ever heard (it reminds me a lot of your music, Steve). With its brilliant mixing of unique sounds, it never ceases to keep the listener engaged. For those of you interested, I would strongly recommend listening to Puff on your iPod while performing some activity that wouldn’t normally excite you. You’ll feel much cooler than you would have otherwise. - Phil