EP#2 New Mexico

"Art punk," "experimental rock," and "drum and bass"are a few ways Proton Proton (PP) has been described. The music ofthis trio (Paul Fuster, Jarrod Ruby, and Aron Sanchez) made up ofbits and pieces of the best of different genres, has a sense ofquirky intelligence of the hip acts -- Beck, The Postal Service,The White Stripes -- of the current underground music scene.

The genre-confusing music on EP#2 -- as thename suggests, is the band's second EP (they have yet to release afull-length album) -- is fundamental. PP's armory is modest,consisting of no more than just three instruments, other than thevocals, with minimal to none production effects. Still, the natureof the instruments used, and the band's gracious adoption of allkinds of indie styles, make EP#2 musically ambiguous.

With the exception of the drums, the other twoinstruments used by PP to make noise are unusual, seldom been usedby a rock band. In fact one of them has never ever been used -- oreven created for that matter -- before: the gass.

The gass literally takes its name from the twoinstruments it integrates: the guitar and the bass. The designerand player of the gass, Sanchez, makes this peculiar instrumentsound like Les Claypool playing the bass and Claypool'spartner-in-crime Larry LaLonde playing the guitars. The gassdoesn't seem to have the total versatility of either the guitar orthe bass, but this doesn't show in PP's music, which has strangetwists and turns to keep it interesting and unique.