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The Fireants - Indian Transvestite - (Firestarter Records)

by Jianda Johnson (http://www.soul.about.com)
Guest reviewer to FEMMUSIC
The Fireants, L.A.- based Alternapunks, venture into trippy mindscapes in Indian Transvestite (inspired by the ancient he/she Native Americans in the same tradition), painting lost little girls, boys, and all kinds in-between with four quick, hard, powerful vignettes.  If Raymond Carver, Wendy O. Williams and Jackson Pollack connected in The Great Beyond for an all-night jam session, they'd create something like this.  "Your heart beats but your head's not right," lead songstress Skie Bender belts along with guitarist Kevin Jacobs, in "Animal." Meanwhile, mental lament and power dynamics come into play: "What's left of you is unidentified," Bender drones ("Unidentified").  "You want power? Tie my hands up," she continues ("Going Numb"), shedding light on shadow-ridden relationships and courageous--albeit tortured--folks who just can't quite jibe with the rest of the world. "Stella" portrays a transvestite, a "true visionary" undergoing "androgynous shock treatment" of sorts in the world, ending in cackles and ancient tribal chants.  Music-wise, they form a surprisingly balanced tripod for the mind. Skie Bender veers off into feral, unexplored mental terrain, screaming, chanting, warbling all the way home, while her root-centered, throbbing bass-playing levels the field, meshing with drummer Kelly Busby's hard-driving, in-the-pocket percussion.  Kevin Jacobs' anti-guitar solos keep things minimalist, strange and somewhat estranged, combining imaginative, rhythmic fingering with atonal, haunting effects.  All in all, this band combines the best of experimental anti-Reaganite performance art and punk from the 1980s with Y2K dysphoria. Truly, it's timeless pathos. If you like hard-driving alternative or punk music, you'll appreciate this.

For more info., visit The Fireants' website (www.thefireants.com) which also features a poetry/art-photo book of the same name ("Indian Transvestite") sold separately from the release.

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