Pitchfork

So two avant-noisemakers get pissed after watching the 2004 presidential election and decide that the next day will be the day they record their long-planned improvised collaboration together. No big deal. These types turn their axes to grind into axe-grinding all the time, right?

Well, yes, but this session is special because it's between Wilco's Nels Cline and Hella's Zach Hill, with help from Matt Zivich (Wilco's live sound engineer) and Jonathan Hischke (Hella's touring bassist).

Going by the name Damsel, Cline and Hill have called their first jam session Distressed (rimshot!). Aside from the post-production editing of Cline's Geraldine Fibbers and Scarnella bandmate Carla Bozulich, Distressed's four long tracks were entirely improvised and mixed in a single day at Chicago's Semaphore Studios, and a press release describes the music as "somewhere between the most abstract freak-outs of Wilco's more recent material and the looser, more minimalist moments of Hella... running the gamut from serene electro-acoustic ambience to unhinged, cathartic squall."

All the damsels and dudes can get Distressed on October 24, when the record comes out on Temporary Residence.

Tracklist:

01 Enduring Freedom
02 Fork-Fed
03 Deathwatch on the American Empire
04 Space Needle