The most unlikely pairing in rock continues for another record. Going Down To The River... To Blow My Mind by Luke Haines and Peter Buck completes the trilogy from the Auteurs and R.E.M. legends. And while I'm not quite sure if this was meant to be a trilogy in the Star Wars sense, there's at least a feeling that the duo is bringing it all home again one last, final time here, enough to make the Ewoks dance by the fire.
Numbers like the title cut are slinky, moderately psychedelic rambles, while the sharp "Hot Artists" punches like The Auteurs' "Light Aircraft on Fire" from a few dacades ago. If you're a fan of Luke Haines like me, then you'll love this record. The former Auteur spits venom on tracks like "Sufi Devotional", a selection moaning about "psychic attack" that owes a lot to Buck's nasty guitar-work, and the same goes for "Me and the Octopus", one of the hardest numbers Haines has been involved with in any project to date. Elsewhere, "Children of the Air" reveals a debt to be paid to "The Upper Classes" from the second, neglected Auteurs long-player. The string samples by Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, Filthy Friends) add a lot here too, with the mellotron getting a workout not seen since a Zombies long-player. Both "Nuclear War" and the bracing-yet-catchy stomp of "Radical Bookshop Now" owe a lot of their success to drumming from Linda Pitmon (also a member of Filthy Friends with Buck and McCaughey), and it's that kit-work that gives Going Down To The River... To Blow My Mind the most robust sound of any of the three Haines/Buck collabs.
Going Down To The River... To Blow My Mind can almost be enjoyed on purely musical terms, for those not intoxicated by Haines' screeds. Still, Luke Haines' half-whispered, half-snarled delivery gives this entire record enough menace to please any of us who've been on his side since the first half of the Nineties. The boom-bap of the Albini-produced Auteurs era is here again, though this is less ampflied chamber pop and more Nuggets-y garage rock with a bit of smarts behind it. The record's also the punchiest bit of work from Luke Haines and Peter Buck to date. Highly recommended.
Going Down To The River... To Blow My Mind by Luke Haines and Peter Buck is out now via Cherry Red Records.
[Photo: Cherry Red Records]