SPECIMEN BOX - Four Walls 2LP

Includes d/l code.

3-D cover and glasses.

"Co-founding avant-punk trio Victims Family with Ralph Spight in '84 when the bassist was still a gangly teenager, Boothroyd set a new bar for 4-string virtuosity over the course of 6 LPs of genre-busting jazz punk and countless tours. In addition to other collaborations with Spight with affiliated groups Saturn’s Flea Collar, Hellworms and currently as members of Jello Biafra’s Guantanamo School of Medicine, the bassist also played a key part in both ferociously psychedelic experimental punk outfit Triclops! and NorCal hard-rock heavyweights Brubaker.

Although the main creative force behind Specimen Box, the recording is about as far from a “solo” album as can be imagined. The bassist put a call out to his legions of past and present band mates, weird punk contemporaries, fellow travelers and kindred spirits. He asked for one minute of music, in any tempo, time signature or key.

Over the past 8 years, Boothroyd has been collecting, collating and organizing those 60-sec snippets, fleshing them out with his own contributions and those of other musicians to gradually build the four 20-minute suites of sublimely chaotic and endlessly engaging instrumentals that make up Four Walls. Featuring a whopping 113 different players -- including members of his own bands as well as Nomeansno, Alice Donut, Fear, Scratch Acid, Broun Fellinis, Rova Saxophone Quartet, Butthole Surfers, Fear, Primus, Earthless, Trans Am and a myriad of others -- Boothroyd came up with a new term for the recording: “Kaleidophonic Hybrid Fidelity.”

Packed with neck-snapping, ADD shifts in mood and musical style, the dizzying sonic journey finds its closest antecedents in the early efforts of Mr. Bungle and the landmark 1990 debut of John Zorn’s Naked City. Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, Specimen Box offers up a mind-bending mixtape for adventurous listeners." - Dave Pehling, CBS SF