A three-piece, fusing electronic and electric instrumentation, best described as Sub-Tec Psychotica. Eliot Haynes on Bass, Guitar, and samples; Scott Wilcox on Guitar, Bass, Keys and samples; Habbib on Drums, Percussion, and samples. And All on VOX Lety is Kiska in the pre-Habbib days. This was Scott and Eliot working up ideas with mass greenage, new technology, and only 10 or so years of working on 4 tracks together...the "real" beginning to sub-tec psycotica...

The Last Temptation of Lefty

In fall 2000 we recorded and mixed at The Bridge with James Stevens and mastered with Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova Digital Audio. Hybridized sci-fi power rock, with many interesting diversions.

Since the death of Frank Zappa, rock music has become a lot less jazzy. It's missing some of the spontaneity, the noise, the experimentation. Zappa pioneered a way to make rock 'n' roll once simple pop music an entirely cerebral and vast affair. Today some bands try and some bands succeed, making rock music with a jazz sensibility. But rarely are these artists unsigned bands that make albums all by themselves. Usually, this kind of experimental payoff is reserved for major label babes like Radiohead.Years ago, pioneering punk bands like Television and Wire also had their hand at what has become art-punk-jazz-rock. But now, we have an Austin band doing it and doing it well. And that's what you're likely to think upon hearing The Last Temptation of Lefty by Kiska. Kiska is a local trio of artists making music with an eye toward the moon and an ear into the static fury of the technological future. It's spacey, serene and complex. Songs like "Left In Space" begin with blistering jazz guitar chords and your basic rock drums and soon you hear samples, you hear noises and you're not sure where they come from. But you know it all sounds very good. One such sample on "Left In Space" is so bizarre, it's impossible to determine its source, yet it's incredibly infectious and makes the song what it is. "Pulse" is a more traditional rock song, as falsetto voices sing between spoken word lyrics. But even with that song's fuzzed-out guitars and Pixies inspiration, the drumming keeps the beat electric and varied. "Gravitational Collapse" returns to more experimentation as a catchy bassline drives your ears into a host of sampled audio clips from space films and educational materials. A powerful guitar riff piles on as the distant voices of intergalatic commentary pop into frame. A breather comes with the whistfully sublime "Fallen Leaves," a melancholy echo of meditation on change. The songs on this album start and stop, lift and lower. They keep you jumping and then, suddenly, throw you on the ground. It's like a mad dash between punk and poetry, and at times sounds eerily like Sonic Youth's more adventurous material. In fact, the vocals are so close to Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, it can be a bit distracting. But the music is able to transcend this, and it sounds more like an homage, intentional or not. Like Zappa or Radiohead, the songs are at their core rock 'n' roll. The music at its heart is pop. But each piece, no matter how radio-friendly, is laced with sonic juxtapositions that make your head twirl and your ears prick up. It's based in the rhythm, as the drums and bass for the entire album are what keeps this unit grounded. And that, let's face it, is the essence of jazz. Experiment all you want, but if you don't have that foundation, you'll lose us forever. But for much of The Last Temptation of Lefty, Kiska keeps us holding on. One impressive quality of Kiska is the sheer magnitude of sound and scope they put on record, considering the complete lack of funding they likely had. These are Austin musicians who make and press records in the most DIY fashion, and that usually yields a pretty ordinary product. Too often local indie rock bands wander into a minimalist attitude and strip their songs bare because of a lack of innovation or invention. With Kiska, they're pulling a double-barrelled assault on the ears, multi-track recording be damned. In the end, they do more on 16 tracks of audio than many major label darlings can do on 48. Though, this does mean their music has room to grow. And at times, like on the song "Roadbeast," the band seems to get so caught up in the art process that they forget about the listener. Bandmembers Scott Wilcox and Eliot Haynes also work on art installations they have one in June at the Queens Museum in NYC and it shows in the music. The tracks on The Last Temptation of Lefty play like the pop soundtrack to an art show. But the music is so vivid, it paints these colorful images for you. The sounds are so mixed, a blend of chaotic confusion and hypnotic ease, that the record becomes an art piece. It would be unfair to call the album "art rock," but that's as close a label as we have in our musical vocabulary. Perhaps bands like Kiska will help us think beyond our limitations, and expand the way we listen to music. Its the pushing of those boundaries that make music like this possible, and legacies like that of Frank Zappa, Television and Sonic Youth live on.

-Matt Dentler, The Daily Texan

Everybody Loves a Hero Our first disc, was recorded at Wish Wash. mixed at Catapult Studios and mastered at The Living Room. In the pre-Habbib days we resorted to bongos and drum machines. Eerie vocals and visuals, childhood chants with smooth, warm basslines as displayed in the opening track "Degenerate Man". Sugar sweet scratches tucked between delayed reality permeates this album, but the honey coated vocals of Lady J and Christy Doolen ice the proverbial cake. A collage of color and electronic sound that would make Gene Wilder proud. -Raymond Grant, Salt for Slugs Funky electronic skiffle, Lefty is the sort of eerie, one-off project that arrives full blown from parties intent on capturing the gloomy magic of late-night noodling. This is unclassifiable, almost avant-noise rock with spooky electronic overtones, switching from manic, synthesized walls of sound to quiet, almost languid passages marked by female vocals ("Slippery"), freaky compendiums of everything-and-the kitchen-sink clamor ("Big Stomp"), and jazzy, free-form meditations on outright weirdness ("We Don't Rent Pigs"). You can't fault the locals in Lefty for the chaos inherent on this 2am tutelage in post-electronica, but whether you're going to "get it" depends entirely on your mood at the moment. The spare, clickbeep patterns of "Space Pimp" reflect the chill, rainswept October skies outside my window right now, while "My Cherie" breathily complements the cloudy Austin fall. Several tracks here might be called "Everybody Loves a Jam Session," but when Jilita Darzic and Christy Doolen's soothing, ethereal voices weave lazy spirals around Neil McKeeby's guitar wash and various synthesized components, it's not chilly, just cool. -Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle