TRUMANS WATER
The Singles 1992-1997
Trumans Water is a somewhat slippery thing. Although they've been issuing sludgy batches of raw, loosely mathematical noise rock ever since 1992 (some early releases, apparently, even included "extras" like locks of hair and family snapshots), it'd be pretty difficult to find much definitive information on them if, say, your friend passed along a CD-R of the 1993 double album, Spasm Smash XXXOXOX Ox and Ass. In their case, the modicum of information is probably most indicative of the band's scattershot anti-concept. At any given time over the past decade—and on most of their recordings—the quartet has been as prone to straight-up riffs as chaotic skronk and noise snippets. Their four albums from '93 and '94, known as the Godspeed series, are not pure improv, though that's how they approached them. Based out of San Diego, Trumans Water have also called Portland home, and soundwise they share plenty with PDX's Electric Eye and our own (now defunct) Popular Shapes. But considering how long they've been around, it's probably best to think of them as a junkier, slightly more earnest U.S. Maple. If you've heard the eight-minute "Aroma of Gina Arnold," you likely know what I mean.

Laura Cassidy - Seattle Weekly, 11/11/2004