''Astrological Straits'' is the debut full-length solo studio album by American recording artist

Zach Hill Zachary Charles Hill (born December 28, 1979) is an American multi-instrumentalist and visual artist. He is best known as the drummer and co-producer of the groups Death Grips, and the I.L.Y's, and as the drummer of math rock band Hella. Ear ...

. It was released on August 12, 2008 by

Anticon Anticon (often styled as anticon.) was an independent record label based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1998 by seven musicians and manager Baillie Parker. It was collectively owned among six musicians, co-founder Parker, and manag ...

and

Ipecac Records Ipecac Recordings is an independent record label based in California. It was founded on April 1, 1999, by Greg Werckman (ex-label manager of Alternative Tentacles, ex-lead singer of DUH (band), DUH, ex-employee of Mercury Records) and Mike Patton ...

Critical reception

''Astrological Straits'' has received generally favorable reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...

. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews and ratings from mainstream critics, the album received a metascore of 72, based on six reviews. Michael Patrick Brady of The Phoenix called the album an "unrestrained torrent of challenging yet tuneful rock" and pointed out that this album served as an outlet for Hill's "abstract ideas". Marc Masters of

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music magazine founded in 1996 by Ryan Schreiber in Minneapolis. It originally covered Alternative rock, alternative and independent music, and expanded to cover genres includin ...

found that Hill's drumming dominated the album. He compared the sound to the work of Liars,

Boredoms Boredoms () (later known as V∞redoms) is a rock band from Osaka, Japan formed in 1986. The band's sound is often referred to as noise rock, or sometimes Japanoise (Japan's noise music scene), though their more recent records have moved towar ...

, Lightning Bolt and

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestra ...

while comparing his vocals on the track "Hindsight Is Nowhere" to those of Angus Andrew, vocalist of Liars. John Bohannon of

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...

complimented the melodies on the album while he criticized the "bombardment of snare drum and obnoxious electronic tones" as well as the choice of including Les Claypool in the album. Nick Greer of Sputnikmusic called Hill's drumming "virtuostic, strange, and interesting" while describing his vocals as compressed and monotonous. He compared the guitar sounds on the album to those of

Hella ''Hella'' is an American English slang term originating in and often associated with San Francisco's East Bay area in Northern California, possibly specifically emerging in the 1970s African-American vernacular of Oakland. It is used as an i ...

's Spencer Seim's work with added "strange slides and electronic, microtonal blurs". Greer appreciated the more pop-driven songs to more experimental ones and called parts of the album "nearly unlistenable".

Track listing

Personnel

*Credits for ''Astrological Straits'' adapted from album liner notes. Performance *Steve Borth – saxophone *

Les Claypool Leslie Edward Claypool (born September 29, 1963) is an American rock music, rock musician. He is the founder, lead singer, bassist, and primary songwriter of the band Primus (band), Primus. Listed as one of the greatest bassists of all time by ...

– bass guitar *Josh Hill – guitar *

–

art direction Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to super ...

, bass,

cornet The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. There is also a soprano cor ...

, electric piano, gong, guitar, drums,

effects Effect may refer to: * A result or change of something ** List of effects ** Cause and effect, an idiom describing causality Pharmacy and pharmacology * Drug effect, a change resulting from the administration of a drug ** Therapeutic effect, ...

, keyboards, loops, mamola,

melodica The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usu ...

, piano,

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

programming Program (American English; also Commonwealth English in terms of computer programming and related activities) or programme (Commonwealth English in all other meanings), programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program m ...

, synthesizer, trumpet, vocals *Jonathan Hischke – bass,

synth bass Keyboard bass (shortened to keybass and sometimes referred as a synth bass) is the use of a smaller, low-pitched keyboard with fewer notes than a regular keyboard or pedal keyboard to substitute for the deep notes of a bass guitar or double bass ...

Dan Elkan Dan Elkan (born September 7, 1978) is an American singer-songwriter and producer, who is best known as the singer and guitarist for the rock band Them Hills. Elkan has performed live with Broken Bells, Hella, and Kim Deal, and has appeared on ...

– backup vocals, guitar *Carson McWhirter – bass,

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

*Robby Moncrief – guitar *

Chino Moreno Camillo "Chino" Wong Moreno (born June 20, 1973) is an American musician who is best known as the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the alternative metal band Deftones. He is also a member of the side-project groups Team Sleep, Crosses, ...

– vocals *Zac Nelson – vocals * Tyler Pope – effects, programming * Randy Randall – guitar *Katelyn Reeves – cornet, flute, photography *Dean Spuntz –

baritone guitar The baritone guitar is a guitar with a longer scale length, typically a larger body, and heavier internal bracing, so it can be tuned to a lower pitch. Gretsch, Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, ESP Guitars, PRS Guitars, Music Man, Danelectro, Sche ...

*RT Thomas – guitar sample *John Reed Thompson – bass,

bugle The bugle is a simple signaling brass instrument with a wide conical bore. It normally has no valves or other pitch-altering devices, and is thus limited to its natural harmonic notes, and pitch is controlled entirely by varying the air a ...

, engineering, guitar, mixing, production, recording, trumpet *

Marco Benevento Marco Benevento (born July 22, 1977) is an American pianist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer, who has been a fixture of the New York experimental music rock music, rock and jazz scene since 1999. He is the founder and rec ...

– piano (Necromancer) Technical *John Golden – mixing * Rich Good – design

Release history

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2008 debut albums Zach Hill albums Anticon albums Ipecac Recordings albums