CUP’s Hydra-Headed Spinning Creature

on Northern Spy
Reviewed by John Payne

Wherein the husband and wife team up to rinse and shine the aural punchbowl, no squabbling. Nels Cline & Yuka Honda are Cup, co-cookers of rich, musically nutritious stuff packed with savory, skewed nuance that reflects their artistic differences and affinities. Guitar visionary Cline’s scope, skills and, yes, taste, is “ax god.” Renowned, his fiercely inventive rock/jazz/other playing with Wilco having boosted his fame-o-meter quite a bit, along with numerous collaborations with the multifarious likes of Medeski Martin & Wood, Deerhoof, Charlie Haden, Julius Hemphill and Mike Watt, along with his own all-instrumental Nels Cline Singers. Keyboardist/electronicist/producer Honda of the late avant-pop duo Cibo Matto has played a vital role in Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon’s bands and is a crucial presence on the downtown NYC new-thing/non-genre/performance-art scene.

Not quite warm ’n’ fuzzy, the hydra-headed Spinning Creature is however the perfect and pretty rare example of fun music that can be, you know, taken seriously. It’s an interface of sympathetic souls and their friendly electronic buddies, pushing and goading themselves as if on a hike across Venus and all three entities discover that indeed their differences matter only in a very superficial sense. The album’s opening “Every Moment,” the sonic equivalent of a Zen garden, is a typically (for them) untypical piece; we’re floating over it, being here now, and we’re perhaps a bit startled to hear string…