Joseph Hammer, Jason Crumer

Show Em The Door presents the first collaboration between Joseph Hammer and Jason Crumer. The pair come from very different backgrounds and are separated in age by a generation but have found in each other a surprisingly sympathetic and compatible musical partnership.Joseph Hammer has been a fixture of the west coast experimental music scene since the early 1980s. He remains one of the most active and visible members of the LAFMS collective, and has founded a long list of legendary bands including Solid Eye, Points of Friction, Dinosaurs With Horns, Joe & Joe, and Dimmer. Hammer's primary instrument is the tape loop, and its recursive logic forms the structural foundation of his hypnotic performances. In realtime, a blank loop accumulates fragments of sonic detritus- snatches of AM radio tunes and magnetic error- compiling a woozy, ragged collage. This technique is most clearly heard on Hammer's 2010 solo LP, I Love You, Please Love Me Too released on PAN.
Jason Crumer's music evolved directly out of the Harsh Noise tradition, but his work often balances Noise's reckless onslaught with deft compositional precision. His recent solo albums, Ottoman Black (Hospital Records, 2008) Walk With Me (Misanthropic Agenda, 2009) and Let There Be Crumer (Second Layer, 2012) are considered some of the best in the genre. Although undoubtedly more aggressive, these albums share a certain spirit with early musique concrète, genuinely seeking new sounds and new narrative forms in which to arrange them.Hammer and Crumer met sometime in the early 2000s, in Damion Romero's living room, and forged a plan to eventually record together. When Hammer was invited to play the 2012 End Tymes Festival in Brooklyn, the pair agreed to meet up afterward at Crumer's home in Baltimore and finally realize the collaboration. Show Em The Door contains the results of that meetingÑ four impeccable, dense, unpredictable tracks. The album is one of those rare cases in which an improbable duo actually works better than anyone could have imagined, bringing out unexpected aspects of both artists's personalities and crafts. (CD) [Released December, 2012]