Any time The Rita unleashes another meditation on the human and shark dialogue, I’m fascinated.  This was one of those impossible to find Troniks one-sided LPs, no info besides the stark image, like a 1950s Broken Flag – shark attack aftermath – beach party is over.  The pieces namesake was the victim of a Great White Shark at Baker Beach in San Francisco, California on May 7, 1959.  Sam going deeper in his search for resonance has even travelled to the exact site where the famous cover photo was originally taken.  Providing grisly detail even closer to the moment of focus, Sam gives these quotations, underlining that once man comes in contact with the out-scaled power of a shark, there’s really little of substance to be done if the strike was brutal enough in those brief instances of extreme-force on human flesh.

“Shirley reached Albert and seized his hand, “but when I pulled, I could see that his arm was just hanging by a thread.” She slipped her arm around him and began to swim for the beach. When she was near enough, a fisherman threw her a line. After they were on the sand, Shirley, a Roman Catholic, scooped up some sea water and let it run over the head of her friend (who had never been baptized and belonged to no specific faith). ”

The shark attack theme is articulated by the unrelentingly turbulent blast of persisting density.  The full and present midrange allows granular focus on the wide-angle cellular structure of surges in crackles, presenting the listener with an enveloping environment at maximized volumes.  The unfurling washes of texture-focus immortalize in duration what – the overloaded moments of absolute terror and impact – being ripped apart and drowned must be like.