The Unknown Instructors are Joe Baiza (Saccharine Trust, Universal Congress Of) on guitar, George Hurley and Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE) on drums and bass, and Dan McGuire on vocals. Saccharine Trust front man Jack Brewer also makes a rousing appearance. The Way Things Work, their Smog Veil debut, features 15 tracks of improvisational rock rooted in the space-is-the-place gospel according to Sun Ra, but its branches extend far enough to brush up against the edges of MC5-styled free-rock, Hendrix-esque melodic unraveling and set pieces that merge the lit-noir duskiness of Jim Thompson with the from-the-gutter reportage of Charles Baudelaire. A sense of bleakness and beauty entwined permeates McGuire's tales of drunkenness and cruelty, his travelogues from the darkest corners of the psyche-all of which are buttressed by a passel of head-swiveling musical ideas.
'Music is a vehicle. Some people choose to take that vehicle around the same block again and again, while others look for a way to boost its octane enough to break clear through the stratosphere. The gents that make up Unknown Instructors not only fall squarely into the latter category, they make the trip sound so compelling that it's virtually impossible not to hitch a ride.' -Dave Sprague
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