After years of relative obscurity, putting out around 25 albums of always thrilling but progressively more sophisticated garage/psych/prog fusion under a variety of guises, most recently Osees, John Dwyer has proved one of the more surprising names to break out from the underground to within touching distance of commercial success. However, his newfound fans might be a bit perplexed by Endless Garbage, a collaboration that began when he walked past free-jazz drummer Ted Byrnes’s garage and heard him practising. After persuading Byrnes to give him some drum tracks, Dwyer layered on his own contributions, and then those of musicians Greg Coates, Tom Dolas and Brad Caulkins, so the band never actually played – or even rehearsed – together, meaning an inevitable sense of chaos permeates throughout.
The results make for hard work – clattering, arrhythmic beats topped with meandering double bass and skronking horns is the default setting – with only intermittently rewarding passages (the more demonstrative Lucky You represents the highlight). While the eight short pieces here might work well soundtracking disorienting film sequences, as a coherent standalone album they struggle. But those baffled by Endless Garbage needn’t worry overly: a new Osees record is never that far away.
