Following up on the previous Vlor album,
A Fire Is Meant for Burning,
Six-Winged acts as a similar flag of convenience for Silber labelhead Brian John Mitchell to get a wide variety of fellow travelers to jointly participate in a group effort, halfway between supergroup jam, label sampler, and remix project. The resultant 16-song collection has Mitchell's guitar and bass parts and occasional vocals as the core for each track, with various collaborators working together or separately to add vocals, beats, other parts in general. Mitchell's work is fairly straightforward -- understandable given that they were meant to be the skeletal beginnings of further work -- but they allow the often-brief tracks to flow together quite well, even as each may take distinctly different roads all together. Thus, the
Seefeel-like, fall-and-rise loops of "Guided" make for a much different piece than "She Goes Out with Boys," with its suddenly charging bass shifting into a moody melody and lyric that Mitchell sings, backed by
Rollerball/
Moodring vocalist Mae Starr. Meanwhile, little could be more significantly different than the near-ambient, lengthy flow of "Tolerate the Wicked," one of two tracks
Aarktica's
Jon DeRosa appears on, the a cappella "Will I See You Again" sung by Annelies Monsere, and the backwoods/garage stomp of "Watch Me Bleed," featuring backing from
Jessica Bailiff, with guest vocals from Michael Wood and Magen McAvenney. It's a wide variety of sound that still works on one album, and very well at that -- especially when showing a sense of humor by calling one of the loveliest instrumental tracks "Maybe You Should Chew on My Fist." ~ Ned Raggett