Rabbit Hash: Don’t Mistake My Enthusiasm for Impatience

Having spent the last couple of months visiting my hometown in Australia, the time is coming to an end. That moment where reality beckons, and the next chapter of life awaits – once again on the other side of the world.

It’s a strange feeling. Saying goodbye to loved ones never gets easier. We all become older with the end drawing closer, that white light sucking us closer to another world. There’s constant worry, nagging guilt and undercurrents of sadness in relation to those you leave behind. Like always in life, there are soundtracks that form the backdrop to these wide range of emotions. Capsule-like sonics that will remain with you for the rest of time.

In this case, the providers are Rabbit Hash – the collaboration between droneroom’s Blake Conley and Cincinnati experimental guitar veteran, Pete Fosco.

On their debut collaboration, Don’t Mistake My Enthusiasm for Impatience, the pair release the first great record of 2023. A series of conscious-stirring soundscapes that capture a certain time and crystalise it.

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Fosco’s textures are brooding, heavy with atmosphere and sentiment. Carefully chiselled out by Conley, from front to back Don’t Mistake My Enthusiasm for Impatience is like watching the clouds pass over open fields. A panoramic outer-world that is part fact, part fiction.  

Starting with the rustic charm of Natural Chrome. A composition that scratches and rattles like a rusty gate in the breeze. The wisp-like static and warm distortion of Grizzled Man distils a similar vibe, evoking the imagery of barren landscapes and nights alone in a motel room in the middle of nowhere. Spaces where the mind wanders in search of new hope.

These ideas feed into Another Rich History for Catastrophes. A protracted atmospheric trip with off-kilter bleeps and diesel-powered tonality that could very well be the soundtrack to a film adaption of a Willy Vlautin novel. The underdog never prospers. They just continue to live being hamstrung by hope.

Then there’s The Art of Sweeping Things Under the Rug. With tones and twangs that scratch at the corners of the mind, this is the kind of track that unearths demons of the past. With heavy-weather emotional force, if this song doesn’t bring a tear to the eye, then you’re probably emotionally bankrupt.

Have You Ever Been Lonely in Tucumcari sees Rabbit Hash diving into the abyss. Conley stamps his mark here, with a dirge-y humid drone that brushes against the rib cage. A song that exposes reality and all the horrors that comes with it.

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From the first note of Natural Chrome, it was clear that Don’t Mistake My Enthusiasm for Impatience would be one of those deeply personal records that will forever remain coursing through the bloodstream. They say timing is everything. In addition to that, things sometimes happen for a reason. We all have different records that cut this way, and Rabbit Hash is another one among a select few.

Whether that eschews judgement and critique of a record is another matter. The fact that art impacts this way says it all. From its subtle warmth and glorious imperfections, purely through sound, Conley and Fosco present the kind of earthy reality that travels beyond the realm.

Don’t Mistake My Enthusiasm for Impatience is an album that radiates with an enigmatic transparency. That’s what can happen when real people make music, and as a collaboration, Conley and Fosco possess an unbridled telepathy. Together, they have formed a gale-force coalition in the space of experimental guitar music. As Rabbit Hash, let’s hope this is just the start of their journey together.   

Don’t Mistake My Enthusiasm for Impatience is out now via Marginal Glitch Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.