It appears to Disaster Amnesiac that Shrimp Ring is less a concept project and more a project with a concept. To clarify, Erin Demastes and Dylan Burchett have produced a cassette document in which the inner world of infraorder Caridea is explored through the use of found objects, appliances, handmade electronics, synthesizers, toy instruments, noisemakers, game calls and computer. The resulting sounds coaxed from this menagerie fall into the broader category of Noise, which makes sense as Shrimp Ring was released by the rather prolific eh? label, which specializes. in documenting such endeavors. The album is full of clicking, dragging, scraping, sweeping, whizzing, buzzing, ticking, and whinging tones pulled from the varied sound making objects utilized by Shrimp Ring. Any appreciator of such sonic samples will likely take pleasure in their hearing. It's a document of slow boil process music, presented from players that clearly delight in exploring the more granular elements included within the sound art process. Things never get overbearing or overblown as instead the two veteran sound artists allow the tones to rise up and out from within their origins and interact with each other in bionic ways. Zones of contact are established and explored, all of them with ears toward the exploration of the ontology of the shrimp. Surely those that appreciate these types of conceptual notions will find them intellectually satisfying. That said, most Noise fans will find tantalization purely from the timbres and rhythms that emerge from the efforts of Shrimp Ring. As Disaster Amnesiac has listened, an effort has been made to recall whether any other sound recordings have centered upon the shrimp as subject. If memory serves correctly, the Residents wrote a song about them, which sets up a fine antecedent with the arts. There's also that line in that Pixies song. Other than that, Shrimp Ring would appear to be working within a pretty wide open zone. Having not heard other offerings from them, this listener wonders what they must sound like. "[t]he plane of reality...(of) shrimp-kind", who knew?
