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Rating: This album was released last year on Thin Wrist Recordings and has only now been reissued by Tak:til / Glitterbeat Records for the European market. However, upon extended listening—although some aspects will remind listeners of musical phenomena that have only gained media attention and recognition in recent years—it seems like an album released directly from the last decade.
Indeed, it becomes difficult, regardless of the sound nuances in the different compositions, not to consider this album as a continuation of a certain alternative sound tradition in the United States of America, which eventually spread to the old continent and our own country. Consider, for instance, the Zu, who have certainly gained significant credit and recognition worldwide. Although to me, this album in particular evokes thoughts of Rosolina Mar, a brief and fleeting experience in the Veneto underground that released a couple of truly strong albums in the mid-2000s.
The mind immediately leaps to formations like Slint and Tortoise, musicians like Don Caballero, and music genres such as post-rock, in its more hardcore and less pompous form (far removed from the sound of bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, or This Will Destroy You, or Explosions In The Sky) or in its more 'intellectual' derivation that is defined as math-rock and almost unique musical phenomena in their eccentricity like the avant-rock of the Sun City Girls.
On the other hand, as soon as this disc is played, one cannot help but think of that great and historic musical experience that is the rock of West Africa ('tishoumaren'), which was literally 'brought to light' by the boom of Tinariwen and all their offspring and derivatives, drawing attention to that region from musicians like Hugo Race, Chris Eckman, Chris Brokaw, and from significant labels including Glitterbeat, which frequently taps into those parts for their releases.
The 75 Dollar Bill comes from Brooklyn, United States of America. They began as a duo from the meeting between guitarist Che Chen and percussionist Rick Brown, former Run On member and serial collaborator over the years, especially with Tortoise. The project is oriented towards minimalism and the proposition of rock-blues soundscapes and ingenious math-rock constructions and patterns.
Clearly, the lineup expands over time, incorporating always different musicians in the various sessions that the two propose in different Brooklyn venues and then in the studio. On this occasion, their latest album titled 'Wood / Metal / Plastic / Pattern / Rhythm / Rock' features members Carey Balch, Rolyn Hu, Cheryl Kingan, Andrew Lafkas, Karen Waltuch. The recordings took place at different times and locations between 2014 and 2015, mostly in various Brooklyn studios. Notably among the various producers is an important figure in the history of avant-rock like Tony Maimone of Pere Ubu.
The album is composed of four tracks. From the outset of the first piece, we immediately sense those already mentioned influences of the North African sound of bands like Tinariwen, Tamikrest, Terakaft. 'Earth Saw' is a monotonic and repetitive track, deliberately intended to create a somewhat hypnotic groove designed to draw the listener in forcefully and keep them glued to listening for the entire duration of the album.
With the second track, 'Beni Said', diversifications in sound begin to emerge even at an instrumental level, with the introduction of instruments like the double bass and viola, the saxophone. To those typically Tinariwen atmospheres are added oriental references to a certain 1960s psychedelia traditionally begun by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and paying homage to Indian traditional thought and music and Ravi Shankar. These elements are introduced into the track gradually up to a psychedelic crescendo, a true mantra that resolves into a vortex of droning suggestions. In 'Cummins Falls', Rick Brown takes the lead with percussion that recreates tribal and ritualistic atmospheres typical of European alternative bands devoted to a certain sound contamination between the 1970s rock and African music like the Goat. 'I'm Not Trying To Wake Up', the track that closes the album, is a long fourteen-minute session that begins with an explosion of noise sounds and then translates into a long episode of avant-rock music in the style of the Sun City Girls, which is hypnotic and at the same time rich in detail as only the most cultured musical works can be, yet without losing that certain wild and typically rock spirit that constitutes a constant throughout the entire work.
The final judgment for a work that seems as composite as it is fundamentally, a subject of improvisations, is definitely positive. 'Wood / Metal / Plastic / Pattern / Rhythm / Rock' is an album suggested to those who have historically been passionate about more experimental and avant-garde rock sounds but also to those who love 1970s rock and progressive music, to those who enjoy contamination. It is an intelligent and 'elemental' album, even though perhaps deep down not particularly innovative and possibly overly repetitive and minimalist in each of its individual tracks to stand and withstand the test of time.
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