DON'T CLIMB ON AND TAKE THE HOLY WATER

When a quartet named Kinski loses its drummer, it makes perfect sense (at least to cinema buffs) that the remaining trio would continue to gig under the provisional alias 'Herzog'. The pseudonym was a nod of course to film director Werner Herzog, frequently at odds with his leading man of five features, the maniacal Klaus Kinski.

"I had to domesticate the wild beast", Herzog once said about the actor he named "my best fiend". And in musical terms that's not a bad analogy for this 2004 album: a collection of brief studio doodles bracketing a long, concert improvisation, all played without the impetus and punch of a full rhythm section.

The playful album and track titles ("Bulky Knit Cheerleader Sweater" being the standout, in a manner of speaking) are all Dada non-sequiturs typical of Post Rock. But the music itself, minus the relentless drive of other Kinski efforts, is pure Krautrock minimalism filtered through a sieve of Pacific Northwest Grunge: an ideal blend for musicians who sculpt their sounds instead of compose them.

The stunted handful of shorter tracks, possibly included to pad an abbreviated EP to full album length, are little more than formless (some would say aimless) rehearsal jams, hardly long enough to have any sort of impact. Which leaves the centerpiece of the collection, "The Misprint in the Gutenberg Print Shop": a modest ambient drone-fest dragged out beyond 29-minutes, in spirit recalling early TANGERINE DREAM circa "Alpha Centauri", but leaning harder on electric guitar textures.

The long track, recorded live, ends in several minutes of near-subliminal tranquility, broken finally by an excited "Fuck, yeah!!" shouted from the back of the room (it sounds like appreciation, but might have been relief). Your own reaction may not be quite so enthusiastic, but give the music time to grow on you.

I suspect the band, under whatever name they choose to play, would agree with the famous Werner Herzog observation that "civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness". What you'll hear in this set could be the soundtrack to that maxim, but with a little patience and lot of replays you might find the pearl at the bottom of the abyss.