Reeks & the Wrecks Sun June 8

Disjecta

This is what I'm talking about: muddy, intuitive rock rusted up by the blues, but only because the guitars sound bent and coiled and out of whack. Two guitars, a set of drums, and a huge gritty sound stewing in its own dirty foreboding language. Reeks & the Wrecks don't sing, but the corroded, lumbering genius coming from this trio is waving giant hellos to y'all primal, dirty motherfuckers. Say hi back, down a whiskey, and let's exorcise some demons.

Guitarists Orion Satushek and Jason Sands of Reeks & the Wrecks moved their creepy rock party to Portland from Bellingham about a year ago. Drummer Andy Piper stuck around in Washington, so their performances are rare. But they've been around forever, and it's ridiculous how many Portland bands over the past few years would come home from tour, gushing about the shit-hot intensity of this weirdo Bellingham trio. They were like Sasquatch or something. Assisting in their legendry was their sparse, hard-to-find output--since their inception in 1996, they've issued one self-released demo, a limited 12" on Red Alert Works, and a full-length CD on Tumult that's been "coming soon" for like nine thousand years.

But all of it was true, you know. Reeks & the Wrecks play the raddest, most busted-up, funereal rock music, and it comes right from the gut. Sometimes, they even improvise as they go along.

"The majority of the songs we play at shows actually have set structures, but do allow for improvisation. When we make up songs, we all enter a kind of subconscious state and it just happens," explains Satushek over email. "That connection was there ever since our first practice in our first band [called Jayhawker, formed in 1993]."

I wondered if playing together for so long ever lands them in creative ruts, but Satushek countered, "We are in a dirty, messy rut, and that's where we belong."