White Out: China Is Near

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Brad Cohan wrote in the Village Voice: "Tom Surgal, drummer for the improvising avant-gardists White Out — a duo completed by his significant other, multi-instrumentalist Lin Culbertson — insists that although myriad clubs they've played are now history (including the Cooler, CBGB, and, most recently, Tonic), it's not their fault. 'I wouldn't label Lin and me the kiss of death of the New York club scene,' Surgal asserts. 'There are a slew of venues that cease to exist which I can assure you we never played in.' The two met in 1986, introduced by actor (and original Sonic Youth drummer) Richard Edson outside CBGB during a Big Black show. Fittingly, White Out now stand as Big Black's antithesis, a free-jazz deconstruction devoid of niche, with a seismic ambience and atonal serenity that's made the group a vital, if overlooked, part of the downtown scene. Surgal insists that he's guilty of 'never playing a beat in my entire life,' but WO's records — Red Shift (1995), Drunken Little Mass (2001), and China Is Near (2005) —damper his claim" ("Life in a Post-Tonic Universe," 4/9-15/08, p. 106).