Last month, Austin’s self-described No Wave trio Spray Paint released their second LP Rodeo Songs on S.S. Records. Over two albums the band has taken the David Fairean musing that, “tuning the guitar is kind of a ridiculous notion,” and turned it into a de facto thesis on the subject. This band is a much-needed breath of fresh air in Austin’s (the per capita bar/venue capitol of the western world) beer-rock scene. Rodeo Songs takes a Lynchean joy in the art of exploring the unsettling. The dual detuned-guitar interplay of Cory Plump and George Dishner ranges from tight and repetitive to surging and claustrophobic. In voices unceasingly deadpan, they build their lyrical phrases to abrupt non-sequiturs, while keeping things comic and degenerate (e.g. parody song title, “Day Sniffer”). Like their 70’s New York predecessors, Spray Paint take conceptual absurdity from its campsite on art-mountain and force it down into the dive bar. The album’s damaged, it’s drugged out, but it’s also elegant in spite of itself.
Buy Rodeo Songs here. Stream a three song preview here: