By naming their album Esta Guerra (or This War, for English speakers), Missoula, Montana's Ex-Cocaine have crafted a timeless document of protest, even if there's no mention of battle or upheaval, of discontent or revolt. "Protest" because it speaks volumes with few words; the meditative escape of Bryan Ramirez's road-to-nowhere guitar ragas, the let-your-soul-bleed exorcism of Mike C's bongo beats, sound as far removed from the real world, the culture war, the war of rhetoric, that two like-minded psychic warriors could possibly sound in Montana. "Timeless" because Ex-Cocaine's buried ramblings won't truly take hold for another 20 years, even though on first listen you'd swear this was recorded 30 years ago by some Vietnam-defectives, live from a commune in Manitoba. Warm and analog, these grooves just wouldn't sound proper on disc. Maybe cassette, but it's magnetic tape may need some baking in desert sun. Point being, Ex-Cocaine become most affecting as we reverse everything we know and think about modern music, the more anonymous and mysterious, the more confusing and mind-altering, the BETTER.
Honestly, I have no business tackling an album this deep without absorbing it for hours on end. A bender with the recent Siltbreeze offerings is in order. No one can describe, and reference, these latest releases better than Roland Woodbe himself. He'll start foaming at the mouth about Parameter, Steve Perigrine Took, and Roy Harper (try Stormcock), and you'll start another trip down another rabbit hole, picking through amazing records you never knew existed. Though my bro has a good take on the Pink Reason LP (equally perplexing and amazing as this one), there's a whole new world out there neither of us has tapped into. Think of these albums as dirty bombs, landmines placed over cisterns holding the truth underground. Freedom Rock.
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