Transitory Magnetism
Bill Hutson
Every year when December rolls around, and the music magazines and online tastemakers begin publishing their best-of-the-year lists, I do two things. First I panic, thinking there is so much important music I must have missed this year. Usually I will have heard one or two of the records that all the critics are touting, but the rest will be totally unknown to me. I go into a frenzy, downloading and listening to everything I missed. Then I do the second thing: I reaffirm my absolute distaste for music critics and the garbage they like. Take for instance, Fleet Foxes. Now I know that a webzine about underground cassettes is not really the place to take this particular stand, and that I will be preaching to the choir here, but this is my only avenue to say this kind of stuff, so bear with me. Fleet Foxes are a very bad sign for the future of American popular music.
I usually describe my music taste in the following way: I think that all white males should have had their guitars taken from them the moment Kurt Cobain died. Sure we would have missed out on late Pavement and a couple of great Sonic Youth albums, but think of all of the terrible things we wouldn't have had to suffer through. And Fleet Foxes are at the crux of my argument here. Like Nirvana was, Fleet Foxes are on Sub Pop Records, a label whose name used to mean below-the-mainstream-radar pop music. Apparently now it just means unacceptably bad pop music. The notion that a supposedly Alternative Rock album would consistently be in the number one or number two slot on every mainstream publication's year end list just indicates the uselessness of the term "alternative" to describe anything at all. The music itself is the safest, most toothless, easy listening throwback drivel to come out since the 1960's flood of wimpy Beach Boys imitators. Granted, their big single, "White Winter Hymnal," while vapid and empty, does have an ingratiatingly cute melody. I understand someone listing it as "single of the year," as long as that author is under twenty, Caucasian, fond of sweaters and easily startled. But every other song on the album is so forgettable that each note has left my memory by the time the next one is played. The whole thing just floats along and afterwards you realize that you haven't actually heard a second of it. It's like when you're really tired and you read and entire page of a book without comprehending any of the words-- your eyes moved across the page, and you said the words to yourself in your brain, but none of them stuck. That's what the Fleet Foxes album is like. I know that sounds pretty innocuous. Why should I be so angry about something that is, at worst, safe-as-milk twee-folk? Well, during the last week of December, I found my smoking gun.
While shopping in Barnes & Noble, I found myself humming along to the Christmas muzak that was being piped into the store. This is common. I do it often. I kinda like Christmas music, and its unapologetic schmaltz. It took me several moments to realize that the song I was humming along to was a muzak cover of "White Winter Hymnal" in the middle of a playlist of similar renditions of classic Christmas tunes like "Silent Night" and "Deck The Halls." The cover had a female voice singing the lyrics. I paused and listened, just to make sure I wasn't mishearing another song with a similar melody. Nope. "To keep their little heads / from falling in the snow / and I turned 'round...” Those were the words she was singing. If the song could be made any slighter, this cover had succeeded. At least the original has drums and a jaunty tempo. But what alarmed me most was how easily a supposedly "alternative" rock song had been usurped into the popular Christmas music cannon, within the year of its release no less. Surely this means the song will be a seasonal cash cow for whoever's name is on the royalty checks, and hooray for them, but Fleet Foxes are being marketed as "college rock:” music for adults, intellectuals. This is supposed to be "serious" music. Christmas songs are supposed to be left to the unpretentious pop musicians marketed toward teenagers and younger children, like Mariah Carey and Jessica Simpson-- artists of no consequence to critics and record store clerks. Leave Christmas music for Radio Disney, not the local college station.
Perhaps I am just showing my age. If this sounds like the
clueless rant of a get-off-my-lawn-you-darned-
-----
I guess I do three things when December rolls around. I also make my own best-of-the-year list. Like last year, I will begin with capsule reviews of ten of my favorite cassettes from the last twelve months. Unfortunately, during 2008 I wrote far fewer reviews for Cassette Gods, and also bought / received fewer cassettes than in previous years. I will not pretend that my list is, in any way definitive. I'm sure all the other writers here heard way more tapes than I did, so they probably have more authority on what really stood out this year than I do. The following cassettes are listed in alphabetical order.
CALDERA LAKES "Caldera Lakes" (Blackest Rainbow)
The first of this duo's self-titled releases from 2008 was released on the English label Blackest Rainbow back in July. Caldera Lakes is a collaboration between LA's Eva Aguila (whose unfortunately-named solo project, Kevin Shields, seems to have been put on the backburner in time for My Bloody Valentine's reunion tour) and Denver's Brittany Gould (of Married in Berdichev). The project sounds pretty much like what you would expect from a meeting of these two artists, but the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. Their sound is made from the blasts of crunchy static listeners familiar with Kevin Shields would expect, over the haunting melodic vocal loops and improvised lyrics common to Married in Berdichev. But Caldera Lakes makes these solo projects, when heard individually, sound as if they're missing the crucial element that the combination of the two produces. It's like one of those mashups that, through the juxtaposition of two disparate styles, reveals something previously undiscovered in the source material. They have really landed on something magical with this band. (...Am I allowed to review a tape that I mastered?)
ALISTAIR CROSBIE "Sad Faces Of The Moon" (Peasant Magik)
I praised this tape earlier in the year, but it bears repeating: this is a
masterpiece. When it came out last January, "Sad Faces of the Moon" was my
first exposure to Crosbie's music. The strength of this tape earned Crosbie a
new die-hard-fan as I have sought out everything he's put out since this. He
released several CD-Rs in 2008, mostly on his own Lefthand Pressings label, but
this c30 still stands out as the most effective statement in his recent
catalogue. For a description of the sound of this tape, please see my review
from last winter.
EMACIATOR "Nonexistent" (Throne Heap)
Jon Borges was on his grind this year. Pedestrian Deposit, Borges's flagship
noise project, resurfaced after a two year hiatus with the addition of a second
member. The promise of new PD material should be enough to keep any intelligent
Harsh Noise fan salivating on the collar of his black t-shirt. But 2008 also
saw a handful of new releases from Borges's other project, Emaciator, including
two LPs. Emaciator evolved quite a bit over the year. Tape by tape, we watched
the project shift from the despairing crumbly murk of its origins to the
brighter, more hopeful territory of the recent cassettes. "Nonexistent" is the
most succinct, powerful document of Emaciator's third phase-- it's a
state-of-the-union type release. Shimmering guitar tones and washes of warm
distortion peel apart to betray an underlying support of introspection and
uncertainty.
FRAGMENTS "Underground Ocean" (Hanson)
The press release for "Underground Ocean" name-drops Oliver Messiaen (a
reference I don't exactly agree with) and Klaus Schulze. I think it's funny
that, until recently, most noise dudes would be too embarrassed to reveal an
affinity for New Age music. Now we have a whole generation of former harsh
heads who have turned, in some cases exclusively, to the spacey drone prog of
early 70's Tangerine Dream, and the feel-good meditations of Steve Roach. I
don't know who Fragments are (they're a duo from Ohio, and I wouldn't be too
surprised by an Emeralds friendship/connection here) but they've created a tape
that could easily pass for a lo-fi dub of an unearthed 1970's gem: some lost
John Carpenter score for an unrealized film about dolphins in space, recorded to
cassette and buried under decades of grit.
MARBLE SKY "Low God / Lady" (Callow God)
(Another release I mastered. Where is my journalistic integrity?) Jeff
Witscher's Stars Of The Lid-worshipping side project does it again. This super
limited double cassette slipped out last spring in an edition of 40. This guy
is just too good at manufacturing hype-- the only thing that redeems him is that
the hype is well deserved. This is truly gorgeous stuff.
THE RITA "Revealing Leopard Skin" (Skeleton Dust)
I'm convinced that all of The Rita's acolytes and imitators have completely
misunderstood Wall Noise. They fixate on all of the aesthetic similarities
which link The Rita's music to 1990's American Harsh Noise, but not the
differences. Sure, Sam McKinlay likes weird old movies, with lots of violence
and partially naked European hotties. Yes, his music is unrelentingly brutal
and distorted. But these are not the only aspects of The Rita's music that make
the project so compelling. In fact, while there is nothing at all wrong with
horror film, or images of attractive women, these themes distract from The
Rita's unique strength. McKinlay manages to connect Wall Noise to the larger
world of modern/contemporary art, and place it within a context that explains
this relationship. "Revealing Leopard Skin" does this better than any other
release in The Rita's oeuvre. It is materialist harsh noise, similar in spirit
to the sculptural minimalism of Donald Judd, Richard Serra and Carl Andre. It
is about the material itself. The conceptual basis for this double tape is an
examination of the DOD Thrashmaster guitar pedal. On the first side, his
effects loop contains two Thrasmasters. On each subsequent side, another
Thrashmaster is added to the chain, ending up with five of them on the final
side. This additive process is advertised on the back cover of the release, a
choice that separates McKinlay from most of the Harsh Noise world-- he
broadcasts his music's academic (or at least, artistic) objectives. "Revealing
Leopard Skin" is the sound of the Thrashmaster, nothing more-- a meditation on
the material reality of that circuit. It is non-illusory, almost clinical. The
Thrashmasters are treated, as Donald Judd would put it, as specific objects.
Judd writes, "There is an objectivity to the obdurate identity of a material."
These tracks
are
what they are made of, and (being time-based) the process of their production.
In some sense, the tracks themselves are not the art, but only the recorded
evidence of McKinlay's true project, i.e.: the patches themselves, and their
addition of Thrashmasters. By virtue of the fact that the audio is, undeniably
Harsh Noise, McKinlay manages to duck all of the attacks, and accusations of
homosexuality that many of his followers would dump on any other overtly
conceptual work. At once I am intensely impressed by his skillful occupation of
some liminal world between harsh and academic noise, and yet hope he will
eventually be able to drop the immature trappings of Wall Noise (the
half-dressed women pasted to the cover of "Revealing Leopard Skin" for example)
and step fully into the art gallery.
DAMION ROMERO "I Know! I Know!" (Banned Productions)
You know a guy is good when his release can be absolutely filled with
information-- information about the recording process, about every piece of gear
he used, about every tiny detail, and yet the music itself remains entirely
mysterious. "I Know! I Know!" is a processed field recording; the liner notes
contain a complete gear list, and a thorough explanation of exactly what both
sides of the c90, and the accompanying business card discs contain. Romero
placed a microphone in a tree outside of his house in Los Angeles and recorded
over six hours of audio overnight. He then compressed that entire recording
onto a 90 minute cassette. Then he compressed that same recording into a 45
minute digital file and split it between two business card CD-rs. That's it.
This process was explained to me before I heard it, so naturally I got an idea
in my head about what I expected the music to sound like. I was incredibly
surprised, however, when the music itself sounded nothing like my imagination of
it. It was far richer and more eerie than I expected music produced by such a
simple process could be. And at a total of 135 minutes of music, this release
never grows dull. It remains, throughout its entire length, fascinating and
rewarding.
TREETOPS "Like Shadows / Like a Mirror" (Young Tapes)
I picked this tape almost at random out
of a stack of excellent Treetop releases from this year. It is not necessarily
better than the other tapes he put out in 2008, but I can assure that, taken as
a whole, Mike Pollard's output this year eclipsed that of almost every other
drone artist, in terms of freshness and quality. The first few Treetops tapes
(mostly from 2007) sounded a little bit too much like a warmed-over Robedoor for
my taste, but Pollard quickly found his own voice with the cacophonous
atmospheres and melancholy Casio melodies that characterize his recent work.
His work this year has earned him my devoted fandom. He is definitely an artist
to look out for, especially considering that his stuff sells out so fast you
have to pay close attention not to miss an opportunity to buy it. This tape is
on the relatively new label Young Tapes, and despite being printed in black and
white on thin cheap printer paper, the design is excellent. I like a label with
a defined visual aesthetic.
WHISPERING YES "Whispering Yes" (Cavelife)
Whispering Yes is an absolutely stunning
collaboration between Portland, Oregon's Mike Zorman (AKA Frozen Body) and Long
Beach, California's Elijah Forest (AKA Hard Drugs, and member of Terrors).
Unlike a lot of noise collaborations, this tape is not improvised. Too many
collaborations seem to be created by pressing record while two musicians wank
around for a while, each doing his/her own thing, hoping to eventually reach a
common ground before the tape runs out. In an unusual, but welcome change,
Whispering Yes contains two composed pieces, with Forest providing distorted
vocals over Zorman's signature tape crunch. The first side is especially nice,
developing elegantly and organically, starting off slowly, building in the
middle, but never taking the easy road of an all-out harsh noise blowout. Which
is not to say that the tape is at all subdued-- it gets plenty brutal, but it's
the care and precision in structure that make that brutality resonate in a way
that most Harsh Noise collaborations do not.
WORK/DEATH "From An Inescapable Circle" (Three Songs Of Lenin)
This tape really is a mystery to me. It
is clearly built from a recording of people talking and moving around inside a
room, but it has gone through some kind of processing, or layering. However,
the processing doesn't obscure the source material, rather it transforms it into
something much heavier and more oppressive than a simple field recording has any
right to be. It has the feel of Wall Noise without sounding anything like Wall
Noise-- like the sound of the biggest crowd you've ever been in, all murmuring
quietly to each other in such vast numbers that the sum of their voices becomes
a cacophony to rival the densest Macronympha tape from the 90's. Work/Death's
output is consistently exciting, and the fact that everything his does is so
vastly different, yet so clearly his, is a testament to his (unfairly
underappreciated) talent.
-----
I've also written a list of my favorite albums from 2008 that came out on a format other than cassette. This year, unfortunately, I cannot list my absolute favorite album, only because it came out on my label, and it seems a little unprofessional to praise it so highly. I have to wear my (pseudo) journalist hat when I'm writing reviews, and my record label head hat when I'm writing press releases. I try not to get those too mixed up.
10. MINCEMEAT OR TENSPEED "All Critters" (Deathbomb Arc /
Malleable / Big Monies)
This guy is amazing. If you want an
example of undeniable technical virtuosity in experimental music, as
jar-dropping as an Yngwie Malmsteen solo, look no further than Mincemeat or
Tenspeed. Like some kind of futuristic one-man band, Mincemeat's Davey Harms
builds impossible compositions out of nothing but feedback, running through a
monstrous loop that looks like a NAMM demo booth for Boss pedals. The music
produced by this system isn't noise, it's dance music. Harms uses the pulse
produced by internal electronic feedback (that "thup thup thup" sound most noise
musicians try desperately to avoid) to build infectious propulsive techno
rhythms, albeit really fucked up ones. Miraculously, melodies appear out of
nowhere, with Harms, in one memorable instance, playing the rate knob on a delay
pedal like he was rocking out a flaming guitar solo. These pieces are highly
precise and impeccably composed. Anyone who has ever worked with mixer or pedal
feedback cannot help but be impressed by Harms's control over his instrument and
his ability to repeat his compositions night after night, with little
perceptible variation.
9. BRENDAN MURRAY "Commonwealth" (23Five Productions)
Though all of Murray's previous albums
have been superb, "Commonwealth" is his most successful to date. The reason for
this is that it contains one long unbroken track. Murray makes digital drone
music that is both heavy and delicate. He explores this limited palette in ways
that suggest an impressive sensitivity to the nuances of sound and a great ear
for layering. His previous CDs have contained multiple tracks, each one evoking
a slightly different sonic world. On "Commonwealth," Murray combines all his
ideas into one track. Each section effortlessly melts into the next, allowing
the listener the privilege of hearing the in-between moments, the slow
developmental periods of "getting there" as opposed to just "being there."
8. GRASSLUNG / PULSE EMITTER "Split" (Phaserprone)
This split CD-r is, so far, the best
work I've heard from either of these artists. Pulse Emitter has been producing
excellent modular synth noise for a number of years now, and has released too
many tapes and CD-rs to count. Recently, his style has mellowed out a (tiny)
bit. Last year, Pulse Emitter released a pair of CD-rs, called "Meditative
Music" and "Meditative Music 2." They were, as he described them, New Age
albums, and they differed from his usual output by being far more minimal-- they
were each composed by setting up a patch between a modular synthesizer and an
rackmount FM synthesizer, and letting that play out for the length of the piece,
untouched by human hands. It seems that Pulse Emitter has taken what he learned
from those exercises and applied the lessons to his performance. His track on
this split has a very focused approach, developing slowly and sticking within
one carefully defined sound world. It is made up of long synth tones, which
swell and open up before fading away as the next begins. I can't think of a
better word to describe it than "patient," but if that sounds too pedestrian,
know that it is, from my mouth, the highest compliment. The Grasslung tracks
are similarly exquisite. They are a bit busier and more aggressive, but very
tasteful. What is most impressive about this release is its cohesiveness. Most
splits, like compilations, sound schizophrenic. Grasslung and Pulse Emitter
have crafted a split that sounds like an album, and could easily be mistaken for
three tracks by one artist.
7. CHOI JOONYONG / HONG CHULKI / SACHIKO M / OTOMO YOSHIHIDE
"Sweet Cuts, Distant Curves" (Balloon & Needle)
In my humble opinion, the most exciting
new development in the area of free improvisation in the last year has been the
discovery of the Korean EAI community by the worldwide scene. Seoul's small but
excellent group of players has begun making a name for itself with a handful of
well-received releases on the Balloon & Needle, and Manual record labels. At
the center of this crew is the duo of Choi Joonyong and Hong Chulki, formerly of
the ultra harsh, Incapacitants-esque band, Astronoise. Recently those two have
settled down quite a bit, but it is that experience with Harsh Noise that
informs their new improvisational languages. "Sweet Cuts, Distant Curves" is a
transitional record. It is the uneasy combination of two established duos: Choi
Joonyong and Hong Chulki, with Sachiko M and Otomo Yoshihide, from Tokyo. Otomo
and Sachiko are known for their extremely limited sonic palettes, using
sinewaves and incredibly thin feedback tones. On the other hand, Choi and
Hong's sound is much rougher, made from the burly aggressive crackles of broken,
or failing, electronics. On "Sweet Cuts, Distant Curves," the two duos try to
feel out a common ground, a compromised musical language the four can share.
This is an aspect of collaboration occasionally neglected in EAI, but part of
what draws people to listen to improvisational music in the first place. We get
to hear these musicians take risks, fail, succeed, try again. The whole album
isn't perfect. If anything, it's a bit overlong, but it is made up of the stuff
that improvisational music relies on. If this album weren't so rough and
uncomfortable, it might be completely lifeless. (I will also recommend "One
Day," another exciting international EAI collaboration from 2008. It is a
performance by the trio of Japan's Toshimaru Nakemura and the Korean/American
duo, English.)
6. JASON CRUMER "Ottoman Black" (Hospital Productions)
I listened to less Harsh Noise this year
than I usually do. The genre felt like it was beginning to stagnate. Fewer and
fewer noise releases seem to generate any excitement, either in me, or within
the noise community itself. There were very few acknowledged standout
masterpieces in 2008. Which is not to say that there weren't any. Jason
Crumer's "Ottoman Black" is one recording that could restore a lapsed noise
fan's faith in the genre. Even if it had been released in a great year for
noise, this CD would have been an eye-opener. It is Crumer's patience and
excellent taste that makes "Ottoman Black" such a pleasure to listen to. After
a supremely elegant build up, with rumbling tones and restrained clanging,
Crumer takes a bizarre risk. The sound drops out to reveal a recording a fist
fight-- heavy breathing, the sound of blows landing, the grunting of the
fighters. This is an extremely weird choice, and it feels, on the first listen,
a little melodramatic and stupid. But with repeated listens, the fight scene
slowly reveals itself to be central to the composition, a real life reference to
the violence Harsh Noise so often claims to represent. In terms of the audio,
the fight scene is weak-- it is quiet, cleanly recorded, and contains a fair
amount of silence. But it is extremely unpleasant to listen to. It succeeds in
being harsher than Harsh Noise without any pedals or feedback. This is not a new
idea, but it is the kind of experimentation that has disappeared from Noise in
the generations that followed the genre's forefathers. With this album, Crumer
has applied the hyper detailed compositional techniques of younger musicians
like Pedestrian Deposit, to the conceptual risk taking of earlier bands like The
Haters.
5. GRAHAM LAMBKIN & JASON LESCALLEET "The Breadwinner"
(Erstwhile)
"The Breadwinner" is nearly perfect and
absolutely unpretentious. The mundane sounds of everyday life, looped back on
themselves creating relaxed collages like half-remembered dreams on the cusp of
pillow and alarm clock. There are so many excellent reviews of this one out
there; I will simply reiterate that it is beautiful.
4. KEVIN DRUMM "Imperial Distortion" (Hospital Productions)
I was irritated when this CD came out,
not because I didn't like the music, but because I found the reviews at the time
a little overblown. Kevin Drumm did not invent drone music. It's been around
for a while. Just like, with "Sheer Hellish Miasma," he didn't invent noise. I
can see why people can mistakenly credit him with these breakthroughs, but the
truth is: he just does it better than everybody else. "Imperial Distortion" is
simply the most well recorded and maturely executed example of an entire genre
of drone music, that usually comes out on cassette in editions of 100 or fewer.
3. KEITH ROWE "ErstLive 07" (Erstwhile)
In Keith Rowe's more than forty-year
career, he has only released four full-length solo albums. After last year's
"The Room," nobody expected another to arrive so quickly. To be fair, this
isn't really a new album but the recording of a live performance from the
Erstwhile Amplify festival, held in Tokyo in September of 2008. It should be
taken, I think, as a companion to his previous album. "The Room" felt like the
culmination of decades of work, and EL07 is Rowe asking "what now?" in the wake
of that major statement. EL07 sounds like nothing else I have ever heard. The
playing is still recognizably Keith Rowe's (I don't think he could ever be
mistaken for another guitarist) but where his style previously had been built
out of drones and the layering of different sounds, EL07 is very stark, with
Rowe placing shorter sonic events on a canvas of awkward silence. Breaking this
are four recordings of baroque music that Rowe plays, untreated, off an iPod
during the performance. He lets each play, unaccompanied for several minutes,
eventually joining it with a subtle string scrape or rustling sound as it fades
out. The overall feel of the record is confusing and awkward but endlessly
fascinating. It is unsettling, off-balance and spiky, decidedly different from
the thick flow of sound that Rowe is known for. This is an example of an artist
who has, after such a long and influential career, every right to rest on his
laurels, but for some reason refuses to do so. EL07 shows Rowe completely
overhauling his musical language, as if recording "The Room" has completely
cleared him out. I have listened to it more than twenty times since its release
in late December, and it still surprises me.
2. G-SIDE "Starshipz and Rocketz" (Slow Motion Soundz)
With Akon and Ne-Yo trying their hardest
to sound like Alice DeeJay, and every rapper on the radio spitting lyrics over
club beats, it's only natural that someone would start making rave rap for the
chill out room. Alabama's Block Beataz, the producers responsible for the
sounds coming out of Huntsville’s Slow Motion Soundz and Paper Route Gangstaz
record labels, have combined the woozy slowed down tempi popular in Texas with
the rave influence that is guiding the contemporary rap mainstream. The album's
standout track, "Speed of Sound" flips an Enya sample, with a voice singing the
song's title through a vocoder (a real vocoder, not Auto-Tune). Although they
play second fiddle to the beats, rappers ST and Clova are definitely capable.
They have a kind of self-deprecating intelligence that tempers their gangsterism--
kind of like The Clipse, but less wordy. The album's tracks form a (very) loose
narrative having something to do with space travel (mostly as a metaphor for
becoming rich and famous), which justifies the record's Sci-Fi sound. It's like
an album-length sequel to Eightball & MJG's "Space Age 4 Eva," but way better.
1. JASON KAHN & ASHER "Vistas" (and/or)
I worry sometimes that this kind of
music might be nothing but Easy Listening for EAI fans-- to noise what Adult
Contemporary Pop is to 1960's and 70's rock. If that's the case, then maybe I'm
just getting old. But somehow I don't care, this is really really good. Years
ago, Jason Kahn was an improvising percussionist. Lately, he's been actively
producing solo records that have more to do with the genre of Sound Art than EAI.
They tend to be composed of thin, delicate synthesizer drones, or acoustic
feedback generated with amplified drumheads and cymbals. His sound is clean,
smooth, and, as some of his detractors have pointed out, rather pretty. On
"Vistas" he manipulates (or plays alongside) field recordings by Asher Thal-Nir.
Asher is a rising star in the experimental music world whose humble mp3 and CD-r
releases have earned him a small amount of well-deserved hype. "Vistas," like
most of Asher's work, is difficult for me to write about. It is deceptively
simple: "Vistas" contains one long track, which, to be honest, doesn't change
very much at all. But an explanation of the sound, or of the duo's methods
sells the album short. It is much better than any expectation of it a reader
could derive from a description of its sounds. Similarly, I find it difficult
to bestow upon the album over-the-top acclaim. It is so quiet and unassuming
that feverish praise feels inappropriate, like screaming at the top of my lungs
about a very nice sauvignon blanc. I hope it is enough to say that it is my
favorite CD of 2008, and leave it at that.