by Brent Miles
Contributing Writer
One need only look at some of the instruments featured on RPM Orchestra’s latest album to realize this is something different and intriguing from our desert. Hit On All Sixes is a refreshing detour from rote rock and roll.
Conductor Pete Petrisko coaxes otherworldly sounds from unconventional tools such as typewriter percussion, AM and shortwave radio, as well as other assorted noisemakers. Holding it all down are more traditional instruments: Banjo, flute, clarinet, bass and guitar courtesy of Jim Dustan and Jocelyn Ruiz of local stalwarts World Class Thugs. Drummer and percussionist Erik Hunter roots it all firmly in the ground.
What may seem on the surface as random, wayward noise is actually carefully crafted melodic drones. Ambient sound collages give way to Jim and Jocelyn’s haunted harmonies evoking mountain hollers.
Mining a rich quarry of musical history, tracing veins from West Coast lysergic idealism, picking up hitchhiking ghosts from the graveyards of New Orleans, up over the Appalachian Mountains and terminating in East Coast minimalism, RPM Orchestra’s new album Hit On All Sixes features something for everyone.
Featuring live performances recorded at A.R.T.S. Market, Firehouse Gallery and The Trunk Space and released on 56th Street Records, purchase Hit On All Sixes at CD Baby here.
