LP with Download Code / Edition of 300
CASSETTE JOINT RELEASE by Ramp Local
Big Neck Police is a Brooklyn/Philadelphia based rock band made up of Mac Kelly, Hugo Stanley, and Paco Cathcart. A loud, caustic “power-trio” with little going on in the way of effects (“texture”), Hugo (drums), Mac (bass), and Paco (gtr) find their peculiar dynamism instead in the subversion of the punk orthodoxies they appear to revel in- specifically, through improvisation. Song structure in general is often described as a series of “parts”. Big Neck Police music is, rather, a series of open-ended gestures. Bands sometimes will write in a “noise-improv” part to spice up a song — for Big Neck, every part of every song seems to contain a reckless element that lusts toward that formlessness. At a good Big Neck Police show, there is not a moment when chaos is not impending, lurking. Don’t Eat My Friends is the culmination.
The bandmembers are also active artists beyond Big Neck: Mac Kelly is a photographer/videographer and drums for bk punk band Suspekt. Hugo Stanley drums in the philadelphia math-pop group, Palm and has engineered for the band Old Maybe. Paco Cathcart is a writer and records solo music under the name The Cradle; he plays guitar in the bands Sweet Baby Jesus and Shimmer (featuring members of Palberta and Cloud Becomes Your Hand), and has engineered bands such as Palberta, Palm, Dog, and The Sediment Club.
Pretext Social Club on Big Neck Police live at Emet
“Big Neck Police’s punky post rock is a literal critic’s nightmare. It is a hyperactive collection of discordant changes in timbre that defy an all-encompassing description. They sound like… what sex might feel like after and during a weeklong bender of freebasing bath salts. They sound like what would be running through a demonic David Byrne’s mind working the graveyard shift in a post-apocalyptic daycare for zombie children. They sound like an angsty, serpentine Julian Casablancas meets the more intense moments of Trainspotting. Needless to say, their music complemented the grungy venue perfectly, and the venue did the same for their music.”
Post Trash on the most recent release, “Sleight of Time”
“Sleight of Time, with its mixture of familiar rock sounds and bizarre tangents, is confounding. On the basis of this record, I have no idea what makes Big Neck Police tick. I sincerely hope I never find out.”
