A home-recorded duo album by
Jason Bill (formerly of
Charalambides) and
Jack Rose (leader of the Virginia improv trio
Pelt), 1998's
Via St. Louis sounds, unsurprisingly, like a mixture of elements from both bands.
Pelt's raga-based drones and
Charalambides' love of feedback and distortion come together on the 11-minute opener, "Revolution of the Stars," but the remaining six tracks wisely apply these ideas to a variety of instruments and moods, from the skronking clarinet solo "Heat of the Bells" to the wave-like ebb and flow of a pair of slide guitars on "Sting of the Yellow Jackets." The best track is probably the chilling violin and acoustic guitar duet "You Are Not of My People," which sounds like the New Zealand experimentalist
Alastair Galbraith at his most doomy and foreboding. Much less samey and shapeless than most instrumental improvisations,
Via St. Louis is well worth checking out.