The Wire, Issue 252, February 2005
Thread Pulls, Summer Songs
Ninepoint Records (9.1) CD
The slow angular spiked guitar trudge of Dublin young pups and three piece Thread Pulls is built from feedback, dissonant chops and reedy vocals that put one in mind of Thurston Moore traversing a tar pit, laborious foot lift by laborious foot lift, guitar dripping black oily tendrils and bitumen clots, like a heathen god risen from a forbidden land: a Subsonic Youth in every sense. This debut mini album collects five tracks and is an admirable declaration of intent. Opener “Summer” builds over a riff churning like an idling diesel engine, high guitar chimes ushering in the buzzing tectonic bass and drum part led by pinpoint cymbals, before the vocal arrives. This modus operandi works to particularly fine effect on the somnambulant sludge riffed “Nearly There” and the disenchanted stop-start squalls of final instrumental track “Building”. Nick Southgate
01. Summer 04:18
02. Bell drone 03:14
03. Nearly there 03:42
04. Reprise 00:42
05. Building 03:24
“ Summer songs
June 2004, I set up my Mac and as many microphones as I have been able to gather, in a rented room, and Thread Pulls make five spontaneous compositions played live in a day-long session. I’m playing bass. In two further sessions the tracks are built, Gavin’s vocals are added in the kitchen, and I overlay synthesizer parts. The tracks are mixed and mastered as mini-album Summer songs. The Wire describes us as Dublin young pups and the music as an admirable statement of intent. I’m flattered.”
p.42 Make Ready Peter Maybury ISBN 978 0 9566293 3 3, Gall editions, 2015