(Ambient) Valet - Naked Acid - 2008, MP3, 320 kbps

Valet is Honey Owens. Valet started off as an exploration of sound and video with video artist Jason Frank and has even explored the realms of audio/video installation, group dynamic performance art events and "happenings" of all sorts. Honey has played in many different projects in Portland over the last decade, most notably as a member of experimental electronic group Nudge . She co-runs the Yarnlazer label with Adam Forkner and they sometimes play together as WORLD.

Naked Acid, the follow-up to 2007's Valet debut Blood is Clean, functions with the same parts-into-a-whole synergy as its creator. The first five songs work almost exclusively through distended sounds, creeping up through patient drones, manipulated vocals, and echo-in-canyon drums to slow payoffs. The sixth song, "Fire", is a lovesick ballad, an elliptical guitar/voice/tape-hiss first-take that Owens admits is about giving up drugs. The final song explodes the sounds of the first five beneath a noisy, throbbing beat, like Neil Campbell's Astral Social Club ripping Valet apart and spinning everything back on the faster reel.

Honey Owens