Flower-Corsano Duo - The Chocolate Cities LP

C/Site recordings have rescued this killer release from Flowers-Corsano Duo from the depths of short-run CD-R obscurity!* Originally produced for a 2009 tour, The Chocolate Cities captures the duo at their pummelling live peak.

By my calculations, there are six limbs in action across this record, but the kind of racket that would account for a hell of a lot more. Four of those belong to tireless collaborator Chris Corsano and brings what you can expect from that name on a record sleeve: an intense, across the drum kit approach to free rocking that is equal parts Rashied Ali and Mick Harris. The other two limbs in action belong to Michael Flower who plays the Japanese banjo or shahi baaja, a kind of electric zither/autoharp instrument which in his hands veers between sounds of 80s hair metal tap-on shredding, shimmering atmospherics, sitar-like drone, and downtown NYC maximal minimalist overtones a la Branca and Chatham.

As unlikely as this group of references sounds, there’s something immediately intense and arresting to the record and then hypnotic and meditative within the surface chaos. One to be cranked loud!

*I don’t mean CD-R obscurity as a bad thing per se, bring it back I reckon!
-Mitch