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Feb 21, 2019By making a boldly experimental leap in a career already full of them, Dyer and Sanchez have created a surprisingly accessible record that shows off some of their best work to date. Whatever they call themselves, their powerful alchemy shouldn’t be ignored.
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Feb 12, 2019Perhaps what makes this record so impressive is how, despite the elaborate layering of elements, it never feels muddied or overwrought. It knows exactly when to peel each layer back to isolate every drum kick and synth chord, like a miraculous sonic onion, so that every element is exposed.
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Jan 22, 2019As Buke and Gase ebb and flow from one creative whim to the next, Scholars marks one of the oddest and most intriguing albums of the early year.
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Q MagazineJan 15, 2019The oddball duo of Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez rage in a noise-rock playground, sometimes using instruments handmade in Sanchez's workshop. Amid the racket, Dyer's yearning gives political screeds the intimacy of a lover's spat. [Feb 2019, p.108]
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UncutJan 15, 2019BAG's core values remain intact, but it's an exhilarating advance. [Feb 2019, p.24]
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Jan 15, 2019Dyer and Sanchez’s synthesis of the familiar with the new, however, revels in a disparate identity that both challenges and lulls. While not to be crudely termed genre-defying, it would be difficult to argue that the idiosyncratic sound of Buke and Gase can be easily defined.
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Jan 15, 2019Their third full-length, Scholars, reflects the modernization their latest instruments have undergone (Arx allows them to trigger percussion, change instrument effects, and control vocal harmonies with the push of an arcade button), keeping their wholly distinct sound while embracing digital and synth-based instrumentation.
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Jan 31, 2019While the namesake buke and gase instruments they have relied on in the past do crop up here of course, this is an album that moves beyond any expectation you may have for this band and into an entirely more textured, unexpected realm. It has a sense of purpose and intent that only seems to be emphasized by its artful presentation.
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Jan 18, 2019The production here snaps with the clarity and force of stadium-sized headbangers while maintaining the intimacy of Buke and Gase’s earlier work.
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Jan 18, 2019The album is an ambitious and adventurous set of music that's every bit as engaged as anything they've ever released, and there's an undertow of discovery that makes their new music an adventure worth a spin or two.
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MojoJan 23, 2019Much like Dirty Projectors, it takes an adventurous soul to absorb much of this. [Mar 2019, p.93]
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Jan 17, 2019While there are certainly some decent enough ideas to be enjoyed here, this is ultimately a rather flat listen that doesn't challenge anywhere near enough as it appears to intend to; a real wasted opportunity.