What can make supreme weirdness so catchy? The process of discovery and invention is so vague and convoluted, but when you hear something from left field, it’s either like being whacked by Thomas Edison’s wet brain and a huge light goes on over your head or it’s easy to dismiss it as broken ear junk (or just plain shit). For as cacophonic, scree-laced, and scraped-into-a-mound-then-blasted-apart as AKE are, there’s a soft bubblegum-ness that keeps it all sticking together. Somehow. The beauty of it, what I hear may be completely different for the next listener. Christ, they’ve got stuff reminiscent of the Cramps to Roky Erickson to the Lost Sounds to The Pagans to The Clone Defects to The Scientists to Hasil Adkins to Masters of the Obvious to spaghetti western soundtracks to good, old fashioned gas huffing. Mix ‘em up in a big, jagged ball and imagine an accident with them getting splattered on a windshield and the little bits of glass flying everywhere. Definitely something challenging yet instantly listenable. Here’s to rural Wisconsin and its frozen tundras of inspiration.
–todd (Deadbeat)