It's Not Night: It's Space/Bowing Not Knowing To What

It’s Not Night: It’s Space leave the sun and moon behind and head for deeper space on their full-length, Bowing Not Knowing To What. INNIS continue to churn up the grind, lubricating the gears with more than just space dust, pushing the machine further out than before. Bowing Not Knowing To What takes their swirling maelstrom and puts it behind a few new compass points, giving it a bit more focus that ends up propelling rather than diluting. They haven’t forsaken any of the heft, but there’s a broader range of dynamics, accents and locales that elevate and dissipate; not the least of which are the contributions by guests Deborah Gillespie, Shana Falana and Rick Birmingham layering in vocals, flute, strings and some sitar. While The Mantis & The Cow is prime INNIS— dramatic, relentless and over the course of its running time virtually maps out a good chunk of the cosmos—cuts like Painted Serpent are what extend INNIS’ reach to the more distant, Painted Serpent particularly breathing some desert life into places very east of the sun. Magus in the Valley is trademark INNIS, spinning the pistons into over-dive, corkscrewing their bulk into a razor point until it’s a diamond hard drill bit boring through the cratered surface. Vibration Eater does much the same with Kevin Halcott’s guitar oscillating and flaring around the formidable bottom-end engine room of Tommy Guerrero and Michael Lutomski. Rather than going for the obvious lure of pure drive, INNIS let their campaign breathe and flex, giving their weight an elasticity that stretches them, and the sonics, without piercing the hull. Bowing Not Knowing To What fully delivers on the promises made on their debut EP…an ante-upping follow-up that didn’t forget the follow through.

Vibration Eater :: It’s Not Night: It’s Space :: Bowing Not Knowing To What (2012, It’s Not Night: It’s Space)

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