THE THIRTY BEST RECORDS OF 2008: Part #2

25. Rhys Chatham – A Crimson Grail: For 400 Electric Guitars (Table Of The Elements)


Yep, FOUR HUNDRED. Glenn Branca may, allegedly, have done the ‘guitar army’ thing first and, arguably, with greater sonic imagination, but it’s Chatham’s ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’ compositions (also see: ‘Guitar Trio’, ‘Two Gongs’ etc.) that have brought a more ferocious, single-minded WEIGHT to the table. Whether that becomes a weight of transcendence or annihilation can be hair’s breadth decision for the individual listener, but one thing’s for sure: his shit is heavy. When rock fans such as myself are drawn to recordings like this, we inevitably tend to approach them in sweaty-palmed anticipation of an unfathomable, brain-imploding multiplicity of string-mangling Thurston Moore caterwauling. And we are, equally inevitably, disappointed, then eventually awed, by the extent to which a legion of axes, split into battalions playing carefully scored overlapping tonal patterns, end up sounding not like guitars as we know them at all, but quite a lot like a more conventional, acoustic orchestra, as the timbre of individual instruments is lost within the vast space of the concert hall, their rock-power nullified as they are melded into a hive mind of pure sound, like a living string synthesizer the size of Antarctica. Particularly amazing on this recording is the way in which massed overtones seem to linger in the rafters, imitating the sound of human voices, like ghostly choirs of altos and sopranos, fading out just beyond the grasp of our ears. It has been argued in some quarters that the compositional element of Chatham pieces such as this one is somewhat unsatisfactory, and indeed, Crimson Grail’s rote cinematic swells and distant, ambient melodics cannot really be said to represent the spearhead of the avant garde forty years after the hey-day of New York minimalism. But whatever. The sound itself is incredible, leaving no space for such mealy-mouthed cerebral whining as it swallows you whole. I mean, c’mon – four hundred electric guitars, four hundred amplifiers, reverb the size of Jupiter – YOU WERE SAYING, Mr. Critic, it seems to bellow, as the learned musicologist crumbles to dust beneath the force of Chatham’s cosmic bombast.


24. Fucked Up – The Chemistry Of Common Life (Matador)


Say what you like about Fucked Up, they sure know how to start an album. An ominous 1972 vintage flute solo rises from the silence, glimmers of feedback and fuzz build up as it fades, then WHAM, the fucker explodes into about half a dozen overdriven guitar lines, a pulse-racing motorik beat, a gutteral “WaaaaaaGGGGgggggHHhhhh!”, and … they’re OFF! A shoe-in for ‘intro of the year’, for sure. From there on in though, ‘Chemistry..’ initially seems like something of a confused and underwhelming record, after the motherlode of 2006’s colossal ‘Hidden World’. Sure, the guitars (lots of ‘em) keep on chugging, the drums keep on pounding, Pink Eyes keeps on ranting on about god knows what, but in the process of cutting the umbilical cord to their hardcore roots and advancing into a more amorphous kinda studio-bound punk spacerock, the band seem to have lost some of the fearsome urgency that fuelled their earlier work, and instead sound like they’re driving blind, keeping the riffs and the 4/4 flowing on autopilot without a clue as to their eventual destination. And for all the careful attention that’s clearly gone into recording and layering them, the guitars sound neutered and over-polished, lacking the crucial centre of ferocity and off-the-cuff violence that makes for good hardcore. Then, on the second or third listen, it CLICKS. What have we basically got here? Three chords, one beat, a singer intent on spouting gobfuls of incomprehensible wisdom at all and sundry, weird multi-layered noise and electronics, general feeling of some rough n’ ready rock dudes attaining escape velocity and pillaging blindly through the multiverse? – this is HAWKWIND for the 21st century, dude! And suddenly it all makes the most wonderful sense. Long may the, uh, Fucked-Lords fly.

Mp3>Son The Father


23. Sic Alps – U.S. Ez (Siltbreeze)


Usually it annoys me when people insist on comparing all these new zero-fi scuzz bands to Guided By Voices, because, y’know, GBV’s original line-up were recording lo-fi through necessity rather than through affectation, and furthermore, they put a lot of work into making their records sound clear, and interesting, and great, rather than just sitting back and taking pride in sounding as shitty and half-assed as possible. Sic Alps though, to their credit, really DO have a mode of operation going on that begs a GBV comparison, simply with regard to banging out tons of short, easily melodic, lyrically confounding songs, and piecing them together into cohesive and intriguing albums amid bursts of weirdness, failed 4-track experiments and flatout noise. Obviously their songwriting isn’t half as hot as Pollard and co (whose is?), but I don’t think they’re really trying to compete in that race, which is fine. Both bands may betray a heavy ‘60s influence, but the sound Sic Alps are aiming for is quite different. Often, they seem to be gunning for some groovy beatnik-bluesy shuffle, like 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', Aftermath-era Stones or the really early Magic Band stuff. Which is awesome! And at other points on ‘U.S. Ez’, they’re hitting on a more spaced out line of reverb-drenched psyche-pop, which is really very nice too. I definitely get the feeling that if these guys had made it to the studio and got in an outside producer instead of recording at home, they would have emerged sounding more like, say, the Black Keys or the Brian Jonestown Massacre than anything Siltbreeze or basement-dwelling noise scenesters would touch with a bargepole. Just cool, solid, easy-going retro-styled rock n’ roll, essentially. There’s a real nice, positive energy going on here that I’m down with, not to mention some great riffs, weird words, hair-raising noise and captivating melodies. They use the limitations of their lo-fi-fu in a kinda pleasing fashion too, exploring distorted, decaying drum thwacks and distant amp hum in a way that’s warm and fuzzy and analogue-mysterious, rather than abrasive or irritating. So, yeah, this is GOOD STUFF right here, sorta nicely, sloppily pleasurable – in many ways, the diametric opposite of the more confrontational end of the ultra-lofi spectrum. The musical equivalent of sitting down in a comfy chair and drinking some beer and forgetting to shave. It’ll be a joy to hear what they get up to in future. More of the same I’m guessing, and that’s just fine.

Mp3>Gellyroll Gumdrop


22. Moss – Sub Templum (Rise Above)


It’s been a hard-fought battle for thee ultimate in glacial metal sludge over the past few years, but all bets are off – Moss have won the doom arms race. Taking their initial cue from Burning Witch’s torture chamber approach to metal convention, Moss’s secret weapon is their bloodyminded refusal to bow to the extremity of their own art, their ability to keep their amplifiers shackled to the mast of song form, even as the basics of rock band ‘dynamics’ threaten to collapse through sheer hellish lethargy and weight of noise. What I mean is: when you listen to Sunn 0))), you’ve always got the ‘ambient’ escape route; zone out, treat it as a drone; relax. Listen to Asva, and you’ve got their different compositional ‘segments’ and experiments in sound to keep you occupied. Listen to Moss on the other hand, and they refuse to let you forget for a second that you’re FUCKED. As the sub-neanderthal sub-bass creeps outta the tarpit at a BPM approaching single figures, for five, ten, twenty, thirty minutes at a stretch, the drummer keeps on drumming – painful, heartbeat defying chasms hanging between each snare thwack – and worse still, the singer keeps on singing – inhuman howls of pain that seem to linger in the air indefinitely until the dude’s poor throat seizes up. Jus Osborn of Electric Wizard is at the controls, bringing the kind of sickening heaviness that his own band has been lacking of recent, and it’s good to have it back – a total cocoon of roaring, misanthropic noise-comfort. But The ‘Wizard are practically a party band compared to these guys. Moss aren’t the only band to gleefully take doom metal to it’s further extremes, but, for all the mish-mash of esoteric imagery adorning their album sleeves (I spot medieval alchemy, freemasonry, thelema, Seal of Solomon – the usual suspects), they’re one of the only bands to do so whilst reminding you at every turn this is still music made by *people*. People who are still, on some level, trying to sing you a song. LOOK HOW WRONG IT WENT, and tremble.

Mp3> Dragged to the Roots


21. Toumani Diabate – The Mande Variations (World Circuit)


When I found myself getting into Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate’s ‘In The Heart Of The Moon’ a few years back, I naturally assumed it was the late Toure’s contribution I was digging the most, he being the blues-based guitarin’ guy and all. But now I suspect it was probably Diabate who brought the lion’s share of that record’s otherworldly yet utterly earthbound beauty, as a similar beauty is chronicled in pretty much every second of the man’s solo work, of which The Mande Variations represents something of a motherlode. It’s certainly been his highest profile release in the West thus far, appearing during the year in which African music started to make some serious inroads back into 1st world musical consciousness, and presenting nearly an hour of Diabate’s unaccompanied Kora playing. And, once you’ve heard it, there’s not much more to say, beyond an acknowledgement that this is amongst the most pure, peaceful, heart-stoppingly beautiful music you will ever hear; the testimony of a man who has dedicated his every waking moment to mastering these nine strings, and to drawing from them the most graceful, satisfying sounds available to us here on earth. It’s melodies, harmonies and purely expressive tonal explorations seem to carry a power that is universally applicable, able to stop any music lover, from any culture, dead in their tracks. Music like this exists on a plain above and beyond any thorny griping about the convoluted politics of Western youth adopting African musical idioms, about the reductive labelling and marketing of ‘world music’, about the phony lure of ‘exoticism’, or whatever else. This is music for everyone, no explanation offered, and none required. Everything you need to know about it, you can find within it.

Mp3>Elyne Road

Labels: album reviews, best of 2008, Fucked Up, Moss, Rhys Chatham, Sic Alps, Toumani Diabate