Monday, April 12, 2010

OLD - LO FLUX TUBE (1991)



Old AKA OLD AKA O.L.D. AKA Old Lady Drivers was an early project of evil genius James Plotkin, formed in the ashes of his humorous-but-brutal grindcore band Regurgitation. Plotkin, as we all know, later went on to play in a bevy of strange and face-melting metal projects, among them Khlyst, Namanax, and Khanate (the latter along with OLD vocalist Alan Dubin). But Old Lady Drivers were an early step in the man's musical evolution, bridging the gap between the silly, blasting death he played in the late 80's and the crushing, experimental doom he grew fonder of in the 90's and 00's. OLD's first album, titled simply Old Lady Drivers and released in 1988, featured a live drummer and definitely dwelt more on the "Regurgitation" side of the fence. But with the release of Lo Flux Tube, Plotkin and Dubin (along with bassist Jason Everman from early Nirvana and Soundgarden, no shit) busted out the drum machines and trippy effects and ventured off into territory previously unknown. Indeed, Tube is a shrieking cacophony of proto-technogrind, sounding a Hell of a lot like Agoraphobic Nosebleed about a decade before Agoraphobic Nosebleed even existed. Shit, John Zorn even shows up to kick down some sax jams on this one. Is there such a thing as avant-garde street cred?
Truly a prophetic album, pre-empting the whole two-man electronic grind craze by at least a dozen years. Superb weirdness.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE

OLD, live in Jersey 1992:



Myspace / Last.FM

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