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Gezoleen is improviser / composer / experimentalist / multi-instrumentalist Jeff McLeod. Black Spaces Between Stars is the second proper "fake/one-man band" Gezoleen release. The first one being a lo-fi affair entitled Oxidado (self-released in 1999). Two previous, hand-made limited releases (Stiff Miserable Goodbye and Bone Road) were more oriented toward ambience and improvisations before Jeff decided to take it in more of an overdriven, screaming, harsh "band" direction with Oxidado. Jeff's been hacking away at fringe musics for 15 years now, and has been involved in so many bands, projects and collaborations that listing them all in a bio would truly be an exercise in tedium. Somewhat like many of what folks call "outsider artists," Jeff is nearly content to create and file away, then create some more and file it away. However, 2004 saw the release of an exclusive track called "Deep in the Dim" on the Hydra Head Records double CD compilation Where Is My Robotic Boot? alongside such luminaries as Merzbow, Tribes of Neurot, Khanate and Final. With Black Spaces Between Stars, welcome into your head this "one man band" of multiple coagulated bass lines, mangled drum tracks, textural samples and synths, vocal dementia, and above all, commanding musicianship - and let it scramble your brains into fajita meat. Resonating like the malevolent spawn of the AmRep family, this anything-but-straight-ahead composite of blackened, disfigured arrangements bristles with heart, rhythm, and a sickening menace. Witness a plethora of boundary-crushing, mind-throttling information crammed into one caustic half hour. This is the uncontrolled, unusual, and uncompromising sound of a musical visionary truly losing patience...and someone's bound to get hurt... -------------------------------------------- Decibel Magazine Review - September 2005 Issue GEZOLEEN - "Black Spaces Between Stars" Black hole of musical murder... From the onset of the first track, "The Pillow Over Face Corporation," you know your nerves and aural faculties are going to be grated like bricks of cheese in an Italian restaurant. Even when said track is presented in that muted, static-y radio style, the screech of something resembling a guitar and the sub-atomic pulsating of the bass shines through loud and clear. And when the man behind this one-man excursion into the grey area between white noise and music mimicking the sound of eleven tractor-trailers grinding on a hairpin turn guard rail, it hits you that much harder. Gezoleen approximates and summarizes many sound scenarios: what it would sound like if Jim (Foetus) Thirwell interpreted Big Black with guitars and Chinese fireworks;being pushed off the edge of a fiery volcano by James Plotkin; the Swans doing an on-line mash up of Neubaten's "Autobahn" and Neurosis' "Pain Of Mind"; the guy from Naglfar taking a volley of buckshot to the chin; an intestine-collapsing caboodle of thrashcore riffs through the rusty and dusty distortion pedal Mike Patton once ran his vocals through. Black Spaces Between Stars is as damaging as it is frightening; life-affirming as it is destructive and engaging as it is repulsing. -KEVIN STEWART-PANKO -------------------------------------------- Crucial Blast Review GEZOLEEN is Alabama improviser/multi-instrumentalist Jeff McLeod's challenging, malevolent take on post-Am Rep/Skin Graft noise rock spun off into particularly ear-destroying directions. Noise rock basslines and drumming are gnarled and obscured by abrasive noise,McLeod's vocal dementia fluctuates between harsh singing and insane babbling,and synths,textured electronics and static add a layer of filth to everything. While not as blown and melted as Geisha's brutal whiteout, Gezoleen occupies a similiar mudfield of smeared blackened tuneage and deformed arrangements. Everything's covered in caustic feedback that whips out of control, and songs sound like they could implode or burnout at any second. Hellish, angular, barbed-wire distorto rock spitting gunks of black noise all over your grill. A long-lost imaginary soundtrack to Hellraiser II: Hellbound as scored by Today is The Day, Thrones, and Mount Shasta blasted out of a tinny transistor radio hotwired to your spinal column. Menacing shit that closes out with a sort-of hidden Dazzling Killmen song at the very end. Artwork is from Paul Nitsche (Oneiroid Psychosis, Dazzling Killmen and Skin Graft comics). ------------------------------- Transcending the Mundane Review: Black Spaces Between Stars is one weird disc- and I mean that in a good way. Jeff's vocals are bizarre, the music is incomparable. It's not only industrial, electronic, doom, or sludge and you can't even tell if bands like Neurosis or Godflesh, usually obvious influences on these type of bands, have an impact on Gezoleen. I do know that I love the fast paced and extreme "Phoning it in from the Subconscious" and that closing track "Trnsmssnntroptdnddcdd" is unlistenable due to the weird noises. It's labels like Acerbic Noise and Crucial Blast which are truly pushing the limits of experimental music these days. Album Score: 8 out of 10 Reviewed by: Brett VanPut - TTM magazine/webzine -------------------------------------- Rock my Monkey Review This is a pretty cover. "The Black Spaces Between Stars". Looks like an ambient kind of selection here. Well, I think it's time to brew some chamomile tea, put on my slippers and ease this disc into the Hello Kitty boombox... Hello, my name is -deathboy-, and I stand before you here today as the shredded remains of my former self. This cd is not at all what I expected. This tore the slippers right off my feet and turned my tea into a viscuous, dripping ichor puddling around my feet amongst the shattered remains of my teacup. There are times when your mind is set to maximum overdrive and nothing but the most abrasive noise will do to scour the thought process from your grey-matter. That is exactly the effect this release has had upon me. It is completely harsh industrial noise ala Controlled Bleeding, And Christ Wept or ancient Skinny Puppy. The deviant mastermind and maestro of torment behind this blistering assault, Jeff Mcleod, has created an auditory experience likened unto being bitchslapped with a cheese grater or beer bonging scrap metal. Unlike the aforementioned Controlled Bleeding release, "Phlegm Bag Splattered", this does have some rhthyms and bass lines drifting through it. The production is, of course, quite harsh. But in an case such as this, it only lends to the effect. Don't expect to hear anything "pretty" if you do take the plunge. Nor is there any kind of guitar wizardry at all. It's more like the noise you would hear inside the engine of a '55 Chevy Bel-Air as the engine seizes from not changing the oil for 50,000 miles. But on a Monday evening after the boss has torn you a new ass and you've just had the worst day of your working life, this disc and a bottle of Wild Turkey will wipe any trace of yourself away. This will not be recieved well by most metalheads. But those adventurous types, with any kind of industrial curiosity whatsoever, should definitely check this out. ---------------------------------------------- Check out the artist's website: http://www.acerbicnoise.com Track List: 1. The Pillow Over Face Corporation 2. To Paint A Man 3. Sndnthy 4. Interspecies Disappointment 5. Phoning It In From The Subconscious 6. Black Spaces Between Stars 7. Suit Dissolves Flesh 8. Trnsmssnntrcptdnddcdd Suggested CDs:Other Genres:
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