They Are Gutting a Body of Water (TAGABOW) have never been tidy, and here on KOOL FAITH / LOOSIES II, they stop pretending. KOOL FAITH / LOOSIES II is a mixtape in the old sense: a sprawl, a scrapbook, a long night of passing the mic and letting the friends, like fellow Philadelphia experimenters, SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE, New York’s Hotline TNT, and Boston’s Horse Jumper of Love, crowd in. Those friends are the point. The guests drift in and out of the fuzz like weather. Sugar-sweet melodies bob on the surface while the distortion rolls underneath, like a pop song trying to stay afloat in a flooded basement. Nothing is polished and after the past noise punk LOTTO tightened the guitars into something sharper, this is the band loosening their grip on purpose. It’s a communal record, built by a scene as much as a band. Now… the news has arrived.
Frontman Doug Dulgarian has been diagnosed with cancer, and the fall tour is cancelled. The record is a roomful of people he loves, and now that room has to stay mostly in the speakers while he focuses on treatment. It’s hard to hear a colossal 29-track love letter to your friends the same way afterward.
