Music Re/View 7

All Images: November 2019

It is easy to become selfish as a listener of music / While curled up in the fetal position in the closet at midnight / Let’s be clear – if you’re not used to ‘difficult’ music, this is not for you / Consider yourself warned / Retaining clarity – this new album is different, once again, from the majority of what has gone before / At first, it seems painfully simple, and perhaps missing the explosions of sound one might have enjoyed / in nature documentaries / Its pace sets a dramatic tone, like we're about to meet our maker / But the devil is in the details, and once one begins to peel away the layers / Scavengers may feed on the decomposing meat for months / don't be conventional / You will need time / How much time is left? / despite the music’s severe linearity / It unfolds like a flower in one of those slow-motion shots / after a traumatic personal loss of some sort / It shouldn’t work. It does. Go figure.

The announcement of a new album earlier this year was certainly a cause for celebration, but also apprehension / Imbued with cult-worthy status and cryptic vision / The World's Strangest Band has existed on the outer fringes of the music scene for almost 40 years now / They’re much easier to respect than like / surveying the landscape they travel through with a wicked eye / We too might have perceived the difference between terror and strangeness / have they accepted the joy and peace in fizzling out / Are they venerating such a breakdown / just dimming the lights and pouring red wine / or bursting out in explosive surprises / In the best new music, after all, to create a third entity is the idea: 1+1= 3 / it’s also another example of the band’s central problem / they pivot and move away / while replacing the shock value of references to slavery and rape with the quotidian drama of relationships / there’s definitely something in our brains – maybe that base reptilian part at its darkest core that desires / A bullet through the head of one still so young!

these post-rock monuments reach up from the depths, grab you by the throat and slowly but surely pull you down / into the bottomless abyss / It’s whatever you want it to be / shimmering, flickering multi-guitars and electronic drone feel misleading / and not exactly gloomy or forbidding – resonantly oblique is more like it / things can’t be this simple / I’m naked and drifting / The Jodorowsky-like atmosphere of this buzzard chant is so visual / Boom! It breaks into gargantuan multi-instrumental waves of rolling tympani, chorus and sundry other stuff / they allow her to play the massive church organ, and then she creates these amazing sounds / It’s not like the herky-jerky improv you would expect with some jazz / The addition of what sounds like children’s backing vocals, tubular bells and buzzsaw synths only amplifies / vast spheres of empty space that can inflict a useful sort of claustrophobia / She’s such a positive, jolly person / circling circles of orange/yellow/brown/beige/black/red / and then she comes up with this demonic music.

The lyrical themes here are all familiar by now / His songs catalog human misery—violence / comfortable / degradation, abusive sex / beauty / death / and other equally Parmenidean topics / with an unflinching eye / The verses can be confessions, which become incantations via much repetition / It’s deeply disorienting, recalling the ramblings of a mad man or a soothsayer / There is a nihilistic fatalism constantly at play in the words uttered / there is a nihilistic fatalism constantly at play in the words uttered / he evokes the kind of weary tragedy endemic to sad drunks and wastrels / Salvation is an illusion. Negation is the only certainty / the skeleton then becomes a source of sustenance to mussels, clams, and microbes for years or even decades to come / Printed out, it wouldn’t surprise me to find the words sliding off the page, or bleeding into the page like blotting paper / They exist in a class all to themselves.

I never realized just listening to an album could be as physically and psychically draining as this is / The world is not going to get any brighter / Even when there’s no longer a band. Not really… Except there is / a gathering around firelight / we realize immediately in that we’re still very much in the presence of / a band who just can’t stop / It’s like a soundtrack to exploring some abandoned, centuries-old / sonic skyscrapers / filled with expensive furniture / Few can graze a concrete product / And now there’s this / haunted-house version / on the beginners slopes / You’ll be back. You won’t be able to help yourself / in the grand scheme of things / You know you want / this type of output

Music Re/View 6

All Images: November 2019

Katamari Damacy is a video game about replenishing the cosmos by rolling a sticky ball — a katamari — all over the planet, gathering objects along the way / That's pretty much how these annoying, contrary youngsters like to go about their entire business / The band taunts you, smashes you over the head, and dares you to ask for more / their mammoth ideations never cease to thrill / A new city is being built on old floodplains and dogshit parks / the product of a boundless creative spirit and unwavering technicality / Instead of quiet-loud / It is primordial and juvenile, dumb and clever, arch and true

it's impressive what these four dudes can do at such a young age / Where there are melodies, there are complete meltdowns into chaotic noise; where there are / Offhand theories / there are unsettling shouts of terror and where there is light, there is of course— / a very particular kind of clattery racket / I don’t have the music theory background to even begin to parse out the record’s absurdly difficult / banjo and drum machine parts / and even the longer ones seem to go by in a blip / There are synthesizers / and an armful of / accordions / atop numerous squalls of industrial garb / The vocals are, frankly, batshit crazy... / a short burst of gibberish-core / upgraded with the litany of / Alfred Schnittke

Unfortunately, this means that the end product is rather unrefined and the experimental, improvised nature of their creations can be tiresome from the listener’s perspective / At times, they seem to meander off / In effect, if you are caught by the Katamari, you have reached the event horizon / while praying you never make eye contact / Lack of resolution is probably the album’s defining aspect / no amount of gravitational force can pull you out / older dudes who long for the days when prog bands like King Crimson and Emerson Lake & Palmer ruled / could easily fall off at any moment

one gets the feeling that this is an important moment for guitar music / The kitchen-sink mentality lays itself out in front of our very own eyes, symbiotic metalworks mutating and taking on new forms / it’s messy hi-fi / It’s the sinister Katamari Keita Takahashi never wanted made flesh / What’s also exciting is the way these songs rock and groove / There’s so much going on here that nothing ever gets bogged down enough to fees indulgent or wanky / I still can’t do any better of a job describing these nine maniacal songs / But here’s what I do know: this is one of the best albums I’ve ever heard / For all the talk of / prime counter-programming / it’s clear that these are either genii at work / finding a way to use the avant-garde toolset / like noted explorer of the sonic outer limits Shirley Bassey / or you’re being had

In fact, expect nothing at all from the band because it is the only way to enjoy these phenoms / we realise that there are some things / about as congruous as David Lynch having been to the same film school as / people who watch drum tutorials online / Indeed, there’s humor here / which is so powerful that / you may never want to hear it again in your life / And with that, there’s just nothing more to say. Listen or don’t / That's your prerogative

'Constructed City' 4: More Material

All Images: West Leicester, October 2019

In a sudden, climatic turnaround - the day following that described in my last post, was clear, bright and dry.  Slowly, Leicester began to dehydrate - as I ventured out with bike and  camera, to document the latest building progress, over the way.

The two main buildings which first triggered my 'Constructed City' thoughts, are all but complete now - leaving this immense, emerging structure, on the bank of the River Soar, as the current main event.  It's an absolute monster, but is progressing rapidly all the same.  It feels like only a few short weeks since I first photographed skeletal steel-frame girders being bolted together, but already, one end is extensively glazed - and acquiring its first and second layers of skin.  My challenge will clearly be to negotiate extreme weather events, in order to keep up with developments, as Winter draws in.  Luckily, I can be there within minutes of leaving my own door - making short, regular forays, around other commitments, pretty achievable.

This site should continue to supply plentiful visual material for a while yet, but will inevitably reach a state of less-inspiring completion, all too soon.  From a purely visual point of view - it's all those complex, interlocking grids, meshes, patterns, and overlaid planes that really interest me.  In comparison - once sealed, the completed building, however sleek or monumental, will almost inevitably present a disappointingly bland face to the world.  This project feels like it's more about urban mutability, and active processes of transformation, than a celebration of the results.

And this building certainly doesn't represent the end of the story, in any case.  It's actually just another piece of a much larger jigsaw.  A massive swathe of the surrounding Great Central/St. Augustine's/Frog Island region of the city will undergo 'renewal' in the near future - meaning there's plenty more construction work to come.  Indeed, as I cycled around the main site - I noticed tell-tale signs of the large, cleared and fenced-off plot opposite, beginning to wake up.  A tower crane is already erected, some big plant is appearing, and the inevitable, lone Security Jobsworth got out of his car to glare at me - as I pointed my lens in their direction.

I guess I should just be grateful that all this time, effort and manpower is being devoted to  building my subject matter around me.