Adrift in the Dead C

Since my formal inauguration into the world of the Dead C in December 2006, my musical perspectives have been irrevocably warped. It started off as a violent reaffirmation - I witnessed the group live at ATP. The trio loitered about calmly onstage, a demeanour that contrasted the screaming feedback drenched "rock" they were purveying to a deafened audience. I purchased Vain, Erudite and Stupid, immediately after their set, a 2CD retrospective which seemed like a logical starting place to immerse myself in their recorded output.
Like so much superb music, initial spins left me slightly puzzled and underwhelmed. The Dead C are extremely minimal, verging on crude and blunt. What they manage to do with limited parameters, is reconceptualize the whole notion of freeform rock. Their music is vast as it is intricate. It rocks in a completely abstract, ineffable manner.
I have also acquired their CDs Tusk and Trapdoor Fucking Exit which have enhanced my profound admiration of this trio. What I love about freeform noise/improv/whatever rock is it's potential for exhilaration and musical transgression whilst retaining the familiar anchorage of drums/guitar instrumentation. By the end of the Tusk album, moments of guitar noise begin to more closely resemble broken vacuum cleaners, a musical approach reminiscent of anti-music dadaists The New Blockaders. On Hell is Now Love, from Trapdoor Fucking Exit, there is present slide guitar that is as lyrical and infused with oceanic longing as the most potent Loren Connors sides.
This is what I adore about setting myself adrift in the Dead C. The marriage of sheer inhuman dissonance with soul nourishing guitar riffage, and whatever other distant and spectral directions the music may seep, trickle or crash towards.