Neptune
Gong Lake 
2008

Radium/Table of the Elements
TOE-CD-811/TOE-LP-811
Compact disc/phono LP, clear vinyl

Behold: Neptune, the most harrowingly original band on this planet — or the next. Its three members are equal parts musicians, sculptors, scientists, blacksmiths, electricians, and industrial machinists; relentlessly inventive, possibly sane. Together, they construct all of their instruments, forging guitars and drums out of circular saw blades, gas tanks, oil drums, bike parts, VCR casings, and miscellany from the trash. Electronics, and even cords, are homemade as well. The combined effect is a bizarre, post-apocalyptic mélange of steel, iron, wire, rust, rivet, knob, and cable; it's lunacy, arc-welded for maximum destruction. Concerts are seizures of motion. Wearing 40-pound guitars assembled entirely from scrap metal, the members don't play their instruments — they battle them, like mechanized golems.

But make no mistake, this is not simply art with sharp edges and serious issues at international customs crossings. Neptune rocks. Hard. Recalling the slapdash angularity of The Fall, the rhythmic ack-ack blasts of This Heat, and the sheer proto-clangor of Einstürzende Neubauten, they count as one of the best experimental rock bands of any era. Their dynamic, expertly wrought songs and skilled improvisations don't start; they explode. Gong Lake is the band's first unlimited CD release, and with it listeners will discover what fans of their live shows have known for years: Neptune is otherworldly.

“Neptune really do accurately approximate in their music the tragic and violent desolation of the auto graveyards from which they draw their raw materials. The fact that the guitar and bass are built from metal affects the timbre of the instruments, the bass sounding harsh, almost distorted, while the guitar rings with surprising clarity.
“It would be wrong to say that Neptune display a mastery of their craft, because in this context, the word "dominance" seems a lot more apropos than "mastery." … here's no point in trying to resist; you just hunker down and let it roll over you like the sonic blitz it is. Neptune are more than dominant—they’re mesmerizing and seemingly omnipotent.”
Pitchfork

“Neptune's sound seems to be born directly from the waste heap, like Athena springing from the head of Fred Sanford. Dan Boucher makes jagged, off-time rhythms on saw blades and oil drums. Jason Sanford and bassist Mark Pearson create abrasive, coppery grooves while screaming rusty murder; and the whole thing is welded together into a sort of Gang-Of-Four-meets-Metal-Machine-Music.”
East Bay Express

“Lots of bands say they want to forge a new sound, but how many take it this literally? Neptune founder Jason Sanford is a metal sculptor who years ago made the leap; since 1995 this Boston quartet has been showing off his machine-part-based guitars, guitarlike things, and percussion instruments, all of which are bona fide works of art before they ever make a sound.

“Neptune aren't just another squad of noisy art-rockers—they're a complete package, pulling up to venues in a psychedelic van painted with a giant merman (Neptune himself, one supposes), and emerging on stage with unholy contraptions, blades and assorted car parts, while the guitar and bass look more like medieval weaponry than traditional instruments. [Neptune] is aggressive, percussive, ringing and utterly distinctive.” 

Chicago Reader

Rhys Chatham
Jonathan Kane’s February
Megafaun
Paul Duncan
Collections of Colonies of Bees
Neptune
Ateleia
School of Seven Bells 
+
Belong
Melissa St. Pierre (Japan)
Impala Eardrums: A Radium Sampler
2008

Radium/Table of the Elements
TOE-CD-812/TOE-LP-812
Compact disc, poster, video
Phono LP, white vinyl, 2x posters

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TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS is a curatorial network and interdisciplinary platform, live-event presenter, and fine-arts publisher of print, audio, and film, lauded by Pitchfork Media as “a national treasure.” Since its origin as a record label in 1993, TotE has been dedicated to preserving, promoting, and promulgating works by international creators of experimental audio, electroacoustics, free-improvised performance, sonic sculpture, microtonality, and modern composition. The label’s 150-plus releases are a vital contemporary chronicle, a survey of meaningful eruptions across a broad horizon of sound and vision.  Each project demonstrates how a publishing concern might romp wild, unbridled from the carousel of convention.

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