Title: +/-
Artist: Buke and Gass
Rating: 4 out of 5
Purchase from: Bandcamp
So I do that long rant about reviewing albums that I haven’t heard before and then I start with one of my favorite albums of recent years for the first review. The alphabet can be a real pain sometimes. In any case, Buke and Gass (now Buke and Gase) was a band I discovered through the fabulous NPR show Radiolab. Buke and Gase consists of Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez who play their homemade instruments including a Buke which is a baritone ukulele and a Gass which is a guitar-bass concoction. With these monsters of the junkyard, comes a captivating, driving cacophony of fantastic noise.
From the moment I first heard the explosive first track, “Run for You”, on +/-, I was hooked. Many of these tracks appear in a more polished form on their first LP, Riposte, but these first takes possess a raw energy that makes them well worth a listen. Other highlights on this album include “Bundletuck”, “Medicina” and “Outt!”
I keep searching for a genre description for this amazing duo. Folk Metal? Junkyard Indie? Post-apocalyptic bluegrass? It’s this very ability to escape classification that will make sure I keep listening to Buke and Gass for a long time to come.