Every once in a while I feel the need to delve deep into the past. Mainly to see if records I used to love still hold up today. My latest foray led me back to this gem. I'm not sure if I really grasped OLD when I was initially introduced to them back in the day, but I knew I liked it a lot. And by god it is still way ahead of the curve! For the uninitiated, OLD aka Old Lady Drivers was the brainchild of James Plotkin. You may know him from such musical mastery's as Khlyst, Jodis, Phantomsmasher, remix and mastering maestro, oh and KHANATE! James formed OLD out of the ashes of his original grindcore act Regurgitate (yep, them too!) in 1987. Having a desire to move in a more experimental direction Mr. Plotkin recruited Alan Dubin (yep, that one!) and OLD was born. With Alan on vocals and James on guitar and programming they released Old Lady Drivers in 1988. Their tongue in cheek proto-digi-grind wasn't too far from what Regurgitate had been doing. It wasn't until the release of their second album Lo Flux Tube that OLD took a big left turn on to the"avant" highway. Did I mention John Zorn plays sax on this album? Infusing way more electronics than it's predecessor, Lo Flux Tube was a quantum leap forward. To describe the sound produced by these guys would be an exercise in futility. Complex, challenging, grinding, and unsettling , are just few choice words that come to mind upon listening. One thing is sure, Lo Flux is superbly weird. Like the Melvins, OLD were years ahead of the curve. While tonally its a wee bit dated, Compositionally this album sounds as fresh and forward think as anything out there now.
Buy It:
Sadly it is out of print, but you can find a few physical copies here:
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