POISON GAS RESEARCH: SILENCE (Lp, 540 Alabama, #310, San Francisco, Ca 94110) The overriding metaphor of PGR is silence -- the silence between cacophonous sounds, the silence that distances barely audible voices, the silence inherent in the media which presents images and words but lacks communicative meaning. There is a kind of dreamy hesitancy to PGR's sound which merges incarnate sounds and strategic silences to create a fusion of fulness/emptiness that suggest a Zen experience.

An experiment with sounds detached from meaning, yet, paradoxically enough, an attempt to restore meaning to sounds that we ignore due to overexposure. Throughout this album there are Nietzschean affirmations of strength that suddenly pull back into introverted and darkly self-reflective moods of despair which are resolved, quite simply, in silence. Highly recommended. TI

Typed by Cheryl Vega 6-11-95