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Wounded Knee

Shimmering New Vistas

(Benbecula; US: Available as import; UK: 9 Mar 2009)

Edinburgh’s Drew Wright is walking a righteous path. I bought one of the fuzzy cuddly’s first self-released cassettes back in ‘04, a minimal yet lengthy affair falling in the dronecore genre. Now, some five years and eight limited CDr releases later, he has finally stepped from self-bootleg to a fully fledged debut LP on Scotland’s finest underground label Benbecula. Wounded Knee has also gone from dreary analog noise to a mesmerizing lo-fi mix of vocal loop manipulation and field recordings that doesn’t take itself too seriously.


Shimmering New Vistas is guaranteed to put you in a smiling, tribal trance. You’ll be amazed how far these sounds will take you if you relax your expectations and let your mind float down stream. It’s like Bobby McFerrin if he was Scottish, realistic, cool, raised on electronic music that never truly satisfied him. You might not remember the Alamo, but you will remember Wounded Knee’s proper debut record.

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Ranta is a music geek from East Vancouver. He spends most of his time researching, procuring, listening to, and writing about music. Since 2004, his work has appeared in such publications as Exclaim!, CBC Music, Tiny Mix Tapes, and PopMatters, and he has been a Polaris Music Prize juror since 2010. He graduated from SFU's Contemporary Arts program with a BFA in music in Summer 2011.


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