Album Review: Riposte by Buke and Gass

By nature, punk should never sound the same twice, yet unfailingly replicates faster than bacteria. Having literally ripped up their instruments and started again, DIY duo [b]Buke & Gass[/b] rally the cause for originality. [b]‘Riposte’[/b] is underpinned by aggressively, bungeeing gass (a guitar with bass strings) and Arone Dyer’s vocal, pairing [b]Mark E Smith[/b]’s unfuckwithable idiosyncrasies with [b]Marnie Stern[/b]’s sweet shrillness.Colin Stetson’s sax whispers around the edges of [b]‘Red Hood Came Home’[/b] and [b]‘Outt!’[/b]; [b]‘Bundletuck’[/b] is the point where a fight flips into furious sex, Dyer yelping, “These days you wake up in a bundle of orgasm”.

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Some of what makes Buke and Gass so unique is borne of need-- a need to sound like a full band despite having only two members; a need for singer Arone Dyer to find a physically comfortable instrument to play that won't aggravate her carpal tunnel syndrome. Yet the Brooklyn duo's approach to music making goes far beyond simply finding solutions to these problems. Dyer plays a modified baritone ukulele (the "buke" in the group's name) that, yes, is smaller than a guitar, but her cohort, Aron Sanchez, also plays a bastardized instrument (the "gass," Sanchez's own Frankenstein melding of guitar and bass) for no other obvious reason than the fact that he can.

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At times on their debut, Riposte, Brooklyn duo Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez duel like early bluesmen. At others, they strip down their folk to downstrokes that blister and neck-snapping tempo changes. Such are the experimental results of this instrumental hybrid: Dyer plays the buke, a six-string baritone ukulele, and Sanchez the gass, a guitar/bass, both incorporating ankle bells, bass drums, and a "toe-bourine." This innovation gives opener "Medulla Oblongata" a slightly haunted feel, Dyer's vocals keening sweet and high, narrating backwoods spirituals with fervor.

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