BLIND IDIOT GOD

CYCLOTRON

  1/  747                                        (Hawkins)                     4.16
  2/  Slackjaw                                   (Hawkins)                     4.51
  3/  Ground Lift                                (Hawkins)                     4.01
  4/  Thunderhead                                (Hawkins)                     4.39
  5/  Head On                                    (Hawkins,Katz,Epstein)        3.53
  6/  Hangtime                                   (Hawkins)                     4.58
  7/  Cloudcover                                 (Hawkins)                     2.42
  8/  Cold Start                                 (Hawkins)                     5.01
  9/  Death Hollow Canyon, Utah                  (Hawkins)                     6.37
  10/ Easing Back                                (Hawkins)                     2.45
  11/ Broadside                                  (Hawkins)                     3.23
  12/ Dead Continent Dub                         (Hawkins)                     4.35

          Recorded at B.C. Studios and Greenpoint Studio, Brooklyn, New York
          Engineer at B.C. Studios: Martin Bisi
          Engineer at Greenpoint: Bob Musso and Oz Fritz
          Assistant enginner at Greenpoint: Imad Mansour
          Live sound by Mike "Hand of God" Sandler
          Produced by Bill Laswell
          Mixed at the Hit Factory by Oz Fritz
          Executive Producers: John Zorn and Disk Union
          Associate Producer: Kazunori Sugiyama
          Mastered by Howie Weinberg

Andy Hawkins: guitar; Gabe Katz: bass; Ted Epstein: drums.

          1992 - Avant (Japan), AVAN 010 (CD)

Note: Bill Laswell does not play on this album.

REVIEWS :

For their third and, apparently, final recording the high voltage instrumental power trio Blind Idiot God joined John Zorn's Avant label, though retaining Bill Laswell as producer and changing their overall sound and direction not a bit. One might have expected that Zorn, who guested on their previous release, could have steered them toward more overtly experimental ground, but the band instead continued with its unique mixture of anthemic hard-core explosions and spacey, sensual, dub-influenced ruminations. Guitarist Andy Hawkins, who had begun to issue more exploratory solo pieces on his own, does leave himself a few opportunities for some ventures into feedback and looping which had been absent on earlier efforts. There are also a few more tastes of Parliament Funkadelic-inspired groove, presumably as a result of their successful cover of a George Clinton piece on their prior album.

But essentially, Cyclotron is a continuation of the ideas set forth on their initial, self-titled release and, five years down the road those ideas, once so bracing, were beginning to lose some luster. While still head and shoulders over most thrash influenced "math-rock", it was becoming clear that this particular well was beginning to show signs of dryness and that perhaps the band members would be advised to think of drilling elsewhere. For fans of the first two albums, this is still certainly a necessary record to own and one wonders what else may have been produced by these three immensely talented musicians working as a unit but, at the same time, more records retracing the same, or similar, ground may have been overkill.

Brian Olewnick (courtesy of the All Music Guide, via the Get Music website)