Low Red Center, Silent Diane, and How I Quit Crack
7 & 7 Is
Reviewed by Raoul Hernandez, Fri., May 28, 2010
Overdue 7-inch spins at 45rpm should be blamed on Record Store Day – acquisition singles from the Drive-By Truckers, Moby Grape, and the Rolling Stones, plus a Beach House 12-inch – but they're mostly a bust in relation to a cache of local vinyl building since before South by Southwest.
Low Red Center
"Momentary Switch" b/w "Alles Klar" (Answering Machine Recordings)Silent Diane
"Riverside" b/w "Juliet the Painting" (Answering Machine Recordings)How I Quit Crack
"Gone Away" b/w "In Realm" (Answering Machine Recordings)Pink (Low Red Center), purple (Silent Diane), and spumoni (How I Quit Crack) color this trio of singles on Answering Machine Recordings, whose handwritten submission statement is "to release small records by Texas groups and performers who realize their works with electronic instruments." Seven-member studio collective Low Red Center uses analog synths and no computers on the deliciously downbeat electro orgasm crossing Cat Power and Björk on "Momentary Switch," backed with bongwater sax burbles on the flipside. Silent Diane speaks to the elastic pulse of Christine Aprile and Eli Welbourne, whose rich vocals prove the organic center for a synthetic river of melodic current and girl-group harmonies. "Juliet the Painting" winks like a B-side by the XX. One-woman black-light act How I Quit Crack rehabs atop glorious gatefold art, Galaxie 500, and Mazzy Star. Narcotic "In Realm" could double as a Blade Runner. (All) 
