Efrim Manuel Menuck
Pissing Stars

THE REVIEW

The love story between US television star Mary Hart and Mohammed Khashoggi, son of a Saudi arms dealer involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, left such an impression on the young Efrim Manuel Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra) that today this very content is used by him symbolically in the fight against the persistence of certain images that, for one reason or another, remain burned into our memory and can thus become obsessions, restricting individual freedom.

The last two years for Efrim Manuel Menuck have been a difficult period, during which he had to struggle with a deep state of depression and what can be defined as hyperstress overload. Unlike his previous experiences in the post-rock genre, which I have always considered more of a pose than a musical genre (what definition anyway for the term coined by Simon Reynolds), in his second solo album titled "Pissing Stars" (Constellation), Menuck finally places his voice and lyrics at the center of his compositions. It is a writing style of suffering tones, almost religious when combined with the sounds of the album, which mostly unfolds in long and deep dark synthetic ambient sessions filled with suggestions and that distorted maelstrom which is the author's trademark, becoming obsessive and drone-like, interspersed with crystal showers ("The State and Its Love and Genocide"). Minimalist instrumental sessions ("The Lion-Daggers of Calais", "Kills v. Lies", "Hart Khashoggi", the juggernaut of "The Beauty of Children and the War against the Poor") alternate with moments of intense drama like "Black Flags Ov Thee Holy Sonne" or the title track itself, the sacredness of "LxOxVx / Shelter In Place." An exception is "A Lamb In the Land of Payday Loans," a sort of electric ballad and the easiest moment of the entire album.

Menuck might seem contradictory. On one hand, he presents the album in its rawness and for what is his difficult personal experience; on the other hand, he attaches himself to politically motivated content (Donald Trump, global warming), evidently pretextual, as well as to distant stories like the relationship between Mary Hart and Khashoggi or the vocal testimony of Sandra Collins Good, the most "religious" and devoted personality of the Manson Family. His request for love is ultimately something unacceptable for the society we live in and thus filtered through the presentation of shameful or cursed love stories according to classic schemes in the tradition of rock music, which can evidently be interpreted only by truly communing with the artist.