Neptune - Gong Lake

Filed under: Eric Saeger, Music Reviews   

Eric Saeger

In case you haven’t already done so – these guys have been around since 1995 – add Boston band Neptune to the list of art-experimentalist novelty acts whose more heavily promoted icons include Blue Man Group and Recycled Percussion. Neptune was born, innocently enough, as an experiment in sculpture in which all the instruments were made from objects found in garbage heaps, and not just the percussion tools either; as much pure noise went into the creation of the oil-can drums, car-rim cymbals, 40-pound sheet-metal guitars, “electric gas pipe xylophone,” etc. as has been heard on the intermittent flurry of CDs the band has released. For their part, the instruments themselves have been featured in art exhibits.

Musically, then, you’d expect to hear post-apocalyptic essays in noise and you’d be right. It’s a combination of Mothersbaugh discord heard during freak-out scenes of Peewee’s Playhouse, a Primus B-side, and what you’d experience being trapped inside a car with a That Fucking Tank album cranked to 11 while the dashboard slowly comes unbolted. Visit neptuneband.com.

Posted on March 27th, 2008.

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