Khanate
Khanate

First album by Khanate, 2001. They are (were) 4 members, Stephen O'Malley on guitars, James Plotkin on bass, Tim Wyskida on drums, and Alan Dubin on vocals. All with significant past experiences.

Their music is slow, but it is not a celebration of slowness. Their drone is not a result, not a starting point. The blankets of feedback, the long sustain of ultra-low strings are instead textures to be torn apart and re-stitched so that discontinuities are evident. And the music lies in the discontinuities, manifesting in the brief clefts that separate two eternities.

They sound like a twisted (as well as melted) version of the Melvins. The main focus is not on building a riff, but on resolving/exacerbating the tension of the previous chord with a new one, or suspending it by triggering sharp electrical reactions. Perception remains suspended in the space between two events, the stasis within those boundaries, and it's useless to expect a shape, except on rare occasions.

Nor is there regularity in the sequence. The drums are limited to marking each chord, and the only permissible act is a compulsive, inscrutable headbanging, at geological speeds. Each beat anticipates or postpones the position it would have in a regular pattern. This music is the only yardstick for itself.

But in the end, this is how time manifests in reality. Rare are the phenomena marked by regular beats like the seconds of a clock, or a Meshuggah piece. It is a presumption of control that drives us to seek regularity, produce regularity, impose regularity. Time is determined by the events that follow each other, only in relation to their order, regardless of how many seconds/eras we count between one and the next.

Dragged out of our preordained patterns, Khanate's territory is fear. And in the anxiety from the lack of references, basses so grained that every string vibration can be distinguished, ultra-fuzz guitars that burn the air. This is the backdrop where our sensations unfold.

And as the last layer, the wails of Alan Dubin. Close to the abrasive delirium of Steve Austin, it's the instrument with which they most directly communicate their message. From human to human. He recites in the last track: "No Joy," obsessively repeating the title of the song. But after about 44 minutes it was already expected, and if it was joy, it was a perverse version of it.