Buke and Gase formed in 2008, right in the thick of Brooklyn's artisanal rebirth, and named themselves after the two self-made instruments that define their sound. The buke is a baritone ukulele originally conceived to work around Arone Dyer's carpal tunnel; Aron Sanchez' gase is a sort of guitar strung alternately with guitar and bass strings. Elsewhere, there's the toe-bourine and all manner of homemade pedals. They used to work in Sanchez' basement on the waterfront of the borough's "residustrial" Red Hook area (recently devastated by Hurricane Sandy, for which the band released a benefit track), and recently moved to north to Hudson, transferring their recording and practice space to the Basilica, a former 19th century factory.
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At first glance, "Brooklyn band chooses DIY approach" doesn't sound like much to stir the pages of your Moleskine-- or to distinguish the project from the precious, small-batch mode of creation that has come to define (and, some might say, parody) the area. But with Buke and Gase, form dictates function, and vice versa. Their resolutely self-sufficient streak and cannibalized, mechanical instruments aren't worn as a fetishizable quirk, and even now the pair continue to debate the extent to which their decision to break with convention represents just the band or something wider. On January 29, 2013 comes Sanchez and Dyer's second full-length, General Dome, recorded over nine months in the Basilica. Their last release, September's Function Falls EP, marked a transition from their hyper-kinetic debut LP, Riposte; darker, seething, attacking new moods and processes with a gimlet eye. General Dome goes further still, with some of the most scabrous lyrics of the band's catalog, detailing personal, political, and actual violence, rendered even more alienating by Dyer's voice-- part Marnie Stern, part Gwen Stefani circa Tragic Kingdom. [Pitchfork 11/26/12]
