[Editor's Note: MusicNerd Anand Balasubrahmanyan's latest PubliCola podcast is for absolute music geeks only. This is out there and beautiful. You've been warned.]
When I met Dillon Rego, aka Alaskas, on a ramshackle central district porch, he was drinking water from a large Adams peanut butter jar. There’s a story there: The past tenants of the home didn’t to pay the water bill. So the landlord turned off the taps until the outstanding debt was paid. Dillon doesn’t have that kind of money, but he does have an empty peanut butter jar. He fills it up whenever he goes out, and he finds inventive ways to do the dishes. He and his housemate capture rainwater and boil it.
He’s not an uncompromising douche bag. He’s just making creative compromises in his restricted situation. His music works the same way.
Armed with a guitar, a loop pedal, a floor drum, and his body, Dillon makes a feral wall of sound from a scant tool box. His songs are built on repetition and gradually shift into one another. They move more like a noisy DJ mix than a traditional pop song. Imagine Panda Bear captured at his most raw and furious.
The songs are aggressive because they’re wounded. It can be hard to make out Alaskas’ lyrics through the reverb and distortion, but his vulnerable yelps let you know he’s getting over some shit. When you do hear what he’s saying, it’s often because he’s trying to talk himself up, repeating mantras like “I have set sail, there is no more room in my life for you, I have cast you away.” Like most noise and house music, it’s all about this thrumming catharsis.
These tracks were recorded in the basement of the water-less house. The room was damp and echo-y with Alaskas’ uncorked hypnotic fervor dancing over the widely-spaced, bright red wooden floor slats.
Dillon put as much energy into these recordings as it sounds like: In order to make all the noises himself, he devised intricate choreography, rapidly hitting pedals, harmonizing with himself and creating percussion by beatboxing, hitting his guitar and playing a floor tom.
It’s a startling performance, assertive and strange.
