press on:

THE WIRE
Motor Ghost are the duo of Alex Neilson and Ben Reynolds, two key players in the British underground who have followed in the footsteps of the likes of Richard Youngs and Phil Todd with their polyglot approach to song and improvisation. Indeed, Neilson has been working with Youngs in the past few years, both in a duo and as part of Jandek's live trio, while some of Reynold's earliest discs were released on Todd's Memoirs of an Aesthete imprint.
Motor Ghost are made of combustible stuff, and most of A Gold Chain Round Her Breast is high energy, with Reynolds exploring the fieriest ends of his electric guitar while Neilson stretches his kit into elastic shapes. "Golden Promise", the set's highlight, has Reynolds chunking thick, heavy chords out of a distressed amp, as Neilson skims across the surface with bustling, restless limbs. Outside these brutish performances, the duo are also capable of moments of rumination. The acoustic guitar lament of "My Dancing Day", enlivened by Neilson's lithe playing, stretches into melancholy territory as it pivots around a few light handed chords. "Hated Illumination" is enlivened by the duo's use of the dümuk, a Greek horn whose trilling figures corkscrew around their fingers, especially when Reynolds shadows it with globular electronics.
The closing traditional a cappella melody "Leaves of Life" is performed by Neilson, who has a fine, high, slightly faltering voice, gentle and ghostly. There's more evidence of it on a solo a cappella 3" CD-R of traditional songs that comes free with initial copies of the album.
That the album allows such a gesture underlines the duo's ability to balance the blistering with the reflective; even at their most fired up, where things could skid out of control, there's strong entente cordiale on display.

FOXY DIGITALIS - www.digitalisindustries.com
This is an amazing new duo project from Glasgow improvisers Ben Reynolds and Alex Neilson on righteous new label Dancing Wayang. Limited to only 300 LP’s, "A Gold Chain Round Her Breast" introduces this new label with a bang. This is a very diverse but balanced recording with Reynolds and Neilson busting out free jazz scorchers, ecstatic trippy composition and beautiful traditional folk. Starting with ‘Gash Division’ a brooding and heavy opener and then ripping straight into “Trimble” Reynolds and Neilson come straight out of the gates displaying their abilities as some of the finest improvisers working in experimental music today. In fact the most astonishing thing about this recording is the technical prowess exhibited by both improvisers, the electric guitar work by Reynolds on this recording being on par with the heaviest of Ray Russell, Rudolph Grey and Nels Clines while Neilson’s skillful and powerful drumming melds perfectly with everything Reynolds plays. Even the folkier moments such as “My Dancing Days” and “Leaves of Life” have a power and beauty that stands up to the electric bombast found on most of the disc. This is a major statement by two major improvisers brought to us by what will probably be a new force in spreading the gospel of improvised and experimental music. Based out of Eastcote Studios in London, Dancing Wayang provides artists with free studio time and access to high quality facilities and equipment and will release the sessions in small, hand-packaged vinyl editions. 9/10

www.FAKEJAZZ.com
Flower and Corsano proved that if you stick an amazing guitarist (well, Japanese banjoist in this case) and amazing drummer in a room, you'll get an amazing record. However, in their collaboration, Corsano definitely was taking a back seat, adding texture and stability for Flower's out there exploration, giving Flower all the room he needs to breathe but never imposing his will on Flower's direction.
For the Motor Ghost recordings, guitarist Ben Reynolds (he of many solo ventures) and drummer Alex Neilson (who has lent a hand to Oldham and Jandek) try their hand at the great guitar + great drums = greatness equation, capturing their first album A Gold Chain Round Her Breast in a one day recording session, and the results are much more collaborative and varied. On the first track, Reynolds' guitar is at its most elastic, bending like smoke through the air in the song's hazy Hendrix on half speed sound. The heaviness of Neilson's drums brings out more metal/PSF quality to the next song, but Reynolds' lyrical riff can be heard clearly throughout. In contrast, the final song on side A sucks all the air out of the room with a hard strum on the acoustic, equaling the darkness of the rock metal prior track but in a more pensive, quiet, and coiled tone, bringing to mind the live untitled 7" Jack Rose did last year. The B side opens with more electric freakout, this time introducing a kinetic horn solo from Reynolds on top of the guitar and drums. As the song starts to lurch halfway through, Reynolds' guitar starts to chainsaw through the murk, slowly dragging itself free for a feat of fast fingerwork. The drums take the lead on the second song on the B-side, giving it a more free-jazz feel, as horn and spacey guitar sounds bounce around the sound like faeries. The final song is an a cappella folk song sung by Neilson.
While it's hard to compare this duo to The Radiant Mirror, Motor Ghost is the more interesting collaboration, in the purest sense of the word, as the two seem so lock step in each of these five heavy, darkly-colored recordings.

www.BRAINWASHED.com
Motor Ghost consists of Alex Neilson and Ben Reynolds and this limited edition LP is their first recording. It is an impressive document; their playing is challenging and full of life. A Gold Chain Round Her Breast is not always my cup of tea but it is captivating and surprising in equal measure. Most of the pieces sound much larger than a two piece, both musicians being highly adept at what they do means that they avoid the usual thinness of a guitar and drums duo.
Neilson has been grabbing my attention with his stints with Jandek and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, two artists that his style fits in with snugly. A Gold Chain Round Her Breast is my first chance to hear him play his own music (well not entirely his own but he has far more of a creative input here than he does drumming for other artists). Here he has a lot more freedom to express himself and his drumming is the main draw on most of the tracks. Reynolds is not too far off himself, his guitar is one part blues ecstasy and ten parts circular saw.
The improvisations are richly colored, neither player encroaches on the other's space. They instead fill out the piece with their own hues and shades. At times it sounds like neither musician is listening to the other but they know what the other is feeling. It does not always gel together, on "Tremble" there are a few moments when it sounds like the music is going to spin off its axis but they always regain their composure. It is these moments that show off the power of improvisation, it is dangerous sounding and as Blixa Bargeld puts it: "There's no beauty without danger."
On "My Dancing Day" Reynolds switches to acoustic guitar which suits his style of playing far better than the electric. This brings side A to a stunning close, his fretwork comes to the foreground while Neilson's drumming becomes blurred, almost like a sandstorm hitting the drum kit. Turning the LP over, my ears are greeted with the furious sounding "Golden Promise." The spacious improvisations that have preceded it seem like distant memories as this piece thunders around the room, one of the players adding the dümuk to the instrumentation. The cornet-like tone of this instrument sounds hysterical (in a manic sense as opposed to hysterically funny) next to the drums and guitar.
The album spins to a close with something completely different. After nearly two sides of frenetic instrumental music, Motor Ghost dispense totally with their weapons of choice and instead opt for a bout of a cappella folk singing. "Leaves of Life" is a haunting song drenched in reverb, its lyrics set based around the crucifixion of Christ. Neilson alone sings, his voice sounding much older than I was expecting, the pain of the song creeps into his singing. On this note, the adrenaline rush of the rest of the album evaporates and the sound of the needle running off the groove sounds a lot sadder than it ever has. It is a startlingly gorgeous end to a good but thorny album.

DUSTED MAGAZINE - www.dustedmagazine.com
Recorded and mixed in a single day, the breadth of reach on A Gold Chain Round Her Breast is more commonly found on a shuffle option than a slab of vinyl. This of course shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone already familiar with free-drumming folk futurist Alex Neilson or improvising psychedelisist Ben Reynolds, but their Motor Ghost raises the bar on their resumes.
This session sees them emptying out their talents onto the table, then mixing and chopping this mound out into five lines of potent musical firing and one solo slice of Neilson a capella heaven. With music exploding from the fissures between swollen-veined guitar bleeds, electronically-spurned morphed horn sounds and some flexible percussion, this is like someone melted the whole of Japan’s PSF label into one 12.”
Pensive martial patterns and trembling builds makes much of the record feel like it’s about to get an injection of MC5 at any second; instead, it remains at a solid, orbiting peak. Following each others trails, Reynolds loses himself in stretches of stellar soloing while Neilson follows invisible shadows over his kit without showering it in hits. Both “Golden Promise” and “Hated Illumination” use the Greek dümuk horn to potent effect, the former making it sound like duelling high end alto saxophones while the latter sends bursts amongst tempestuous guitar. Further influxes of electronics broaden and morph these horn parts into thick gusts of spurned sound, adding another layer to the duo’s organic foundation. Capturing the chilly heart of the record with the Spanish acoustic styling of “My Dancing Day,” Reynolds also adds a frost to the duo’s inventory.
A Gold Chain Round Her Breast ends on the unsettlingly sweet high of “Leaves of Life,” an initially odd choice for a record that deals principally with expansive free drum / guitar work. The stroke of echo on Alex Neilson’s solo vocal take on this traditional gives the song a ghostly angle, supporting the tale of resurrection and death. Seeming more like an open door to another side of Motor Ghost’s repertoire than a closer, with any luck this pair have only just begun to chart their work.

SOUND PROJECTOR - www.thesoundprojector.com
Ben Reynolds continues his relentless ascent up from the UK underground, appearing here as one half of a new project called Motor Ghost with drummer Alex Neilson. Reynolds is only known to me as a constructor of dense solo drone overdub miniatures, but on A Gold Chain Round Her Breast (DANCING WAYANG RECORDS) we can count on him to belt out some angular and feedback-enriched freenoise guitar shapes. Early signs are looking pretty good for this one, particularly with regard to the hand-made silkscreened cover to this limited-press vinyl LP. The striking painterly artwork and lettering (the latter influenced by the Book of Kells) was created by Anna Tjan, who also recorded the sessions and released the LP on her own label. A strong package that restores your faith in home-made records.