Azonic
Halo
If you know of guitarist Andy Hawkins at all,
it’s probably because of his work with Blind
Idiot God, the noise/dub/post-hardcore/
post-metal/post-everything instrumental trio
he formed in St. Louis, Missouri in 1982. The
groundbreaking band relocated to NYC in
1986, releasing its eponymous debut album
on Greg Ginn’s SST Records the next year.
This powerful opening salvo, coupled with
a reputation for scorching live shows played
at impossible volumes (the band once
nearly destroyed CBGB’s), quickly earned
Blind Idiot God notoriety in the New York
avant-garde music scene. John Zorn and
Bill Laswell were instant fans and frequent
collaborators, with Laswell producing BIG’s
second album, Undertow. Andy Hawkins,
bassist Gabe Katz, and Laswell would
also go on to collaborate on Hawkins’s
first solo outing, Halo, released under the
name Azonic in July of 1994. Consisting
of a quartet of long form, drone-based
improvisations on heavily distorted, highly
reverberant electric guitar (accompanied
by the occasional haunting electronic wash,
courtesy of Katz), Halo is an epic work of
terrifying ambience that maximizes the
full pitch range and extraworldly textural
possibilities of a vibrato-equipped six-string.
The mangled guitar of Hawkins shrieks,
groans, convulses violently, and howls into
the blackened vacuum of space, somehow
conjuring up memorable pieces of music
without ever resorting to anything like a
riff or lick. A rapid-fire, inharmonious blister
of notes will peel off across the stereo
spectrum, followed by a distant seismic roar,
with both suddenly disappearing into the
ether like sonic specters from an auditory
nightmare. Halo is a singular masterpiece
of solo electric guitar, and if that’s not
enough to pique your interest, you should
also know that photography and design for
the album was done by Alex Winter (AKA
Bill S. Preston, Esq). Hawkins is planning to
release a follow-up to Halo in October 2017,
entitled Prospect Of The Deep Volume One,
which will include current BIG drummer Tim
Wyskida on orchestral timpani, bass drum,
and gong accompaniment. It promises to be
a work of massive, brain melting brilliance.
ToneReport.com
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