Harry Pussy

Ride a Dove

BY Bryon HayesPublished Apr 30, 2019

7
Quite possibly the best thing to come from Miami, Harry Pussy were everything a rock band should be: shocking, violent and noisy. The duo-turned-trio of Adris Hoyos, Bill Orcutt and Mark Feehan continuously defied expectations.
 
They released a twelve-inch and a bunch of singles of blistering, angular free jazz-influenced hardcore that thrilled the likes of Lou Barlow (who championed them live on the radio in Toronto while doing press for Sebadoh's Harmacy LP) and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore (who apparently played a Harry Pussy video on MTV's 120 Minutes). Obviously, the outright chaos that these noise mavens were proffering completely befuddled most of the "alternative nation."
 
Even those who were hip to Harry Pussy's sonic terrorism would be confused when Ride a Dove was released in 1996. It was a completely indescribable, terrine-like slurry of high-pitched feedback, blood-curdling shrieking, audience heckling and overdriven bits of what might be actual material recorded by the band. There are track titles, but the LP and CD have no breakpoints.  This is a 30-minute-long, unrelenting eargasm, a trashy American version of musique concrète.
 
The uninitiated would be wiser to look for a copy of the One Plus One compilation from 2012 for their introduction to the Harry Pussy universe, but Ride a Dove is definitely worth a spot in the American noise rock canon.
(Palilalia)

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