Pitchfork

Excepter is an improv-based band, so it makes sense that their "Streams" page-- where, for the past year and a half, they've been giving away unshaped heaps of synth abuse, moaning, and dub tactics ranging from about forty-five minutes to five hours long-- contains some of their best and worst music. Half of the gesture on the band's part seems to be a conceptual dedication, to-- toke and pass-- "the destruction of boundaries between the psychic friends network and reality television" (they're both mockingly and actually far-out, which, as a gag, never loses steam). Going through the whole project seems like torture-- I sure as heck haven't-- but from time to time, I'll click and find that they've loosed something great, like "Stream 42". Their dedication to sounding unpleasant has been especially acute in recent performances, in part because they've started incorporating more, well, comparatively pornographic music: horror movie soundtracks, KLF beats, corroded acid-house synths, funk, punk (frontman John Fell Ryan's concussed Jim Morrison routine is more Alan Vega or Mark E. Smith here). Also serves as a decent preview for the blatant meanness honed on Debt Dept., due in March.

Stream:> Excepter: "Stream 42"