Released: August 17, 2011
Length: 32:29

We’re double the track number since Pike #4. Now we have two whole big tracks to chew on, which means I’ll have to look within myself yet again for writing inspiration. That blows chunks, man.

Track 1 is “Golden Eyes”, just shy of 11 minutes, and the intro is that trademark soft, electronic beat-backdropped downtempo guitar melody that sounds like the Metroid Prime soundtrack. I love that game. I’m glad they remastered it for the Nintendo Switch, which I own now because my 6-year-old owns it and only plays Mario Kart and Animal Crossing. I didn’t not pay $350 for that! I’d load the thing up with my own games if they didn’t cost $59.99 apiece with no room for discounts ever. You don’t even have a monopoly on the video game market, Nintendo! 32gb SDHC card? Go eat a pile of turd sandwiches.

Merzbow makes a living out of being unapologetically annoying!

The 3-minute mark is still largely the same, and I expect all of Pike #5 to be a noodly chillwave trip-hop affair. Maybe a little bit of Portishead but not so much Massive Attack. I like the idea of both of these bands, but I’m never in the mood for something moody, slow, and vaguely psychedelic while there are also vocals. Not lively enough for foreground music, not ambient enough for background music. Not a very good category. It’s in the same box as drone albums with vocals or breakbeat electronic albums à la Venetian Snares. Even Merzbow seems to require some active listening, and that guy just sticks a microphone in front of an amplifier for 78 minutes.

By the 8-minute mark, the guitar has dominated. It’s quite nice, actually. Virtuosic while maintaining some mainstream appeal. Your Moody Blues-loving father might get a kick out of this. It starts getting a little weird around the 9-minute mark, but it’s nothing that’s going to make your grandmother try to exorcise the demons out of your shitty, black, goopy soul.

Next is the title track, “Look Up There”, clocking in at over 21 minutes. Even more ambient and chill than “Golden Eyes”, Buckethead strums his unplugged guitar in a call-and-response folk instrumental. It sounds sullen and atmospheric like the moodier bits of a Porcupine Tree record. The production values are certainly similar; Buckethead must pay top dollar for, I’m assuming, his own personal recording studio. Or he has a really good recorder on his iPhone! Solo electric guitar starts about 3:30 minutes in, laconically dancing around the acoustic rhythm guitar work. This continues to build and build slowly, with no noticeable changes in small chunks. If you want to hear Buckethead extendedly jam it out with fluidity and effortlessness, this is the track to do so. The emotions start pouring out with soaring guitar lines at about eight minutes in.

Pictured: me being a complete jerk to a lady.

What else can I talk about here? I’ve only picked up an electric guitar once in my life at a friend’s house and it sounded like rats running across a violin. I didn’t want to touch it after that because it was probably $2,000. I’ve barely even strummed an acoustic guitar, and every time I try it feels like I’m going to snap the strings. I think I’ve dropped the pick in the hole too many times to not die of complete embarrassment! I’m more of a piano guy, but I play that like my dad typing on a keyboard. I played trumpet for 14 years in middle school, high school, and college, and I peaked in 8th grade with that one. Fuck the trumpet.

Nothing significant has changed in the fourteen-minute mark, so I’m guessing that there’s not much to really write about anymore! Power through though, seven minutes left! I took a day off today, so I’m listening and typing on a Friday afternoon on my kitchen counter. I probably wrote all this literally months before I posted it because I tend to spend another six weeks putting off adding the pictures and another fourteen months before I bother proofreading. That’s right, friends. I proofread all my posts! Only the best for my fans, whoare used to an imaculate presnteation of corectly spelled words and a done grammer good.

Two minutes left and I’m wrapping this sucker up! Stay tuned next time, kids! Don’t do drugs.