David and Louise Petts are the gray eminences behind three of the most inventive groups on today's new music scene: The Poison Cabinet, B-Shops for the Poor, and the Remote Viewers. They are the hard, unblinking laser brightness of musical experimentation, a brightness that is simultaneously as dark as the darkest corner of hell, the corner they so ably explore in their wildly blackened noir tone poems.

David and Louise Petts themselves comprise The Poison Cabinet, an intriguing studio project on which David plays tenor saxophone and Roland synth; Louise vocalizes, plays alto sax, and plys a synthesizer as well. The Poison Cabinet's music on two cassettes, Gothic and Betrayal, often heads toward the edges of danceable funk. Gothic in particular, however, contains several expansive, unhurried numbers where the full eerie power of Louise's voice comes through. The synthesizer base gives this music a techno edge; when the duo reaches for their reeds, which is not often enough, they play entrancing Evan Parkerish lines that set off the lyrics well.

Ah, the lyrics. No oh-baby finger-painting here. Betrayal is drawn from the painting Konzentrische Gruppe by the German cubist Oskar Schlemmer and Harold Pinter's play Betrayal. From "Force": "Oh! Captive, meagre breath. Lumbered, burdened quest. Oh!" Gothic, meanwhile, contains one piece, "Happy Endings," with lyrics taken from the novels of Jane Austen.

B-Shops for the Poor and the Remote Viewers breathe the same gothic black and secret midnight hag-ridden atmosphere, but with expanded personnel that broadens the music's palette and possibilities. B-Shops began in the mid-Eighties as a duo consisting of David Petts and guitarist Jon Dobie; by now it has grown to include Louise, Adrian Northover (alto and soprano saxes), and sometime Evan Parker collaborator John Edwards (bass). The Remote Viewers consists of the two Petts plus Northover: a saxophone trio that produces some of the most rigorously strange cover versions in history (upcoming are "It Could Happen to You" by Jimmy Van Heusen, "Secret" by Madonna, and more). The centerpiece of B-Shops (as well as Poison Cabinet) are Louise's lyrics: always sharply evocative, daring, and impressively aware of the great art that hides in unexpected places.

The Petts' music never sounds quite like anything else. Much of it is weirdly fascinating. New music fans should not miss their work.

"Sinister and consistently compelling." -- Robert Spencer, AAJ

Familiar with David and Louise Petts's work? We welcome your comments.