i d a h o The Forbidden E.P.

THE THICK AND THE THIN ~ HOLD EVERYTHING ~ GOLDENSEAL
APRICOTS TO ARMAGNAC ~ BASS CRAWL

"A must have." - Babysue
"Inexplicably outstanding." - Turnstyle
"Looping and sorrowful as ever, thank God." - Nashville Scene
"Simplified musical enlightenment." - Option
"Raw emotion and odd intellect." - AP
"Very good" - ATN
"Highly recommended." - Pillowfight
"It works beautifuly." - Entertainment Weekly

half an apple

TIME IS THIN, SOUND IS THICK LIKE COLOR. This music washes over. Not like being in the washing machine, like most guitar rock, a little unsubtle, stubby like a dead lawn. More like being a fish in a highball glass, swimming among happily clinking ice cubes. Aquatic, with good visibility. Antarctica towed to the tropics. In the melt, the color sounds blue, and yellow, green where they touch. All the darkness is gone, but not the melancholy; maybe because it was recorded in a 6 by 10 cubicle with no windows, no glass windows. The bass guitar knows, because it's deeper. The guitars don't know, they're emotional. These only have four strings, which makes them impetuous, horny, like youth. Not tuned to E-standard so liberated from the monotony of blues rock, without leaching out any of the blue. Detuned. Or slack key, to the Hawaiians. I feel a great service has been done. They sound like they're in love, outbreaking tonality, gaining strength. "This love so under loaded yearns to fall." The drums are pregnant. Sounds like they're being played with brushes, a light touch, like Buddy Rich. Not macho, exact. Synaptic. There's a good word, but it's no use. Words don't describe colors or sounds very well. They're always going in different directions, like excited chickens. Sounds like dendritic, like trees, treelike, which is how tracings of streams and rivers on the land are described. Land makes music, as it eats and recreates itself, time being as thin as it is. It has been pointed out that the words to describe this music sound like sex: thrust, fold, uplift, over thrust, strike-slip, hot spot, moho boundary, spreading center, rift valley, down flexing basin, anticline, syncline, bedded strata, magma, climax eruption, orogeny - which is mountain building, Or-o-geny. Deep process. It's slow, but it works. "It is not what it seems. It's exactly what you need."
 A friend of mine told me that, after years of cut rate but still dear psychoanalysis, he had been told that instead of going out to parties and telling people all the clever, fucked-up things he was thinking, he should stay home by himself and type them. Some words you hear all the time, but won't hear here: I'm losing you. Mantra of the age of cell phones. Guitar rock is dead, long live guitar rock.

 - Wade Graham


Jeff Martin : guitar, vocals, drums, Prophet V synthesizer, percussion, bass on tracks 1&2
Dan Seta : guitar, bass on track 5
John Goldman : bass on track 3
Malone Koenig : backing vocals on track 5

Idaho is Jeff Martin & Dan Seta

Idaho : PO Box 2509, Los Angeles CA 90078
Buzz Records : 1936 W. Thomas, Chicago IL 60622


THE THICK AND THE THIN ~  HOLD EVERYTHING ~  GOLDENSEAL
APRICOTS TO ARMAGNAC ~  BASS CRAWL
The Forbidden E.P.
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