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Rating: Forget about this album if you are proud to be human. In fact, these 59 minutes and more are a continuous demolition and destruction of what remains of human, ordinary, regular in you.
First, let's introduce the group, a tightrope formation (from Oakland) that revolves around two former members of Idiot Flesh, Nils Frykdahl and Dan Rathbun, and the talented Carla Kihlstedt. The trio has been accompanied, over its eight years, by a host of percussionists and drummers (almost always in pairs even on stage), among whom Moe! Staiano stands out.
It must be said that, if you thought you were used to crazy music, here you will have to think again: the crazy ones are the musicians themselves, known in the US for their extraordinary performances, more similar to avant-garde theatrical-musical shows than to concerts, constantly stuffed with the strangest make-up ever seen (even a bit too naive for my taste, gh) and with a notable inclination to create their own instruments, a prevalent element in our national Rathbun who, on stage, besides a classic bass, brings a number of self-made percussions in addition to a beastly instrument made with piano strings. If you don't see them, you wouldn't believe it (youtube is a faithful friend in this sense).
Now, describing the music of this bunch of crazy people is not even that difficult. It can be summarized in a simple sentence: nothing you have already heard. And nothing you will hear again, after them. But really more more more (quote). Their eclecticism is so vast – and ambitious – that it can be compared to that of maudlin of the Well. However, extraordinarily, our Californians manage to be even more unusual, to range into even vaster and more shapeless territories, where music has no name (neither metal, nor post-rock, nor hardcore, new wave, indie... nothing) and we poor human beings can only speak of avant-garde, or, better, of experimentation. Beyond rock, while still living within a somewhat rock soul. Where one goes from choral moments, soul reminiscences, tender falsettos (A Hymn to the Morning Star), and sudden rhythmic-guitar explosions of almost math-like imprint (the Donkey-Headed Adversary of Humanity), purely experimental compositional interlocks, up to tribal rhythms yet so irregular as to leave one petrified (the spectacular Phthisis). Dissonance and melody are paired in an outrageous and brazen way.
Sometimes the ultimate impression is that of witnessing an ancient and mysterious cult, something primordial that transcends the very idea of humanity. At other times, it's the theatrical impression that wins, a bizarre show up to the excess, a bizarreness that is extremized to the point of losing any term of comparison, entering a non-place of art where the final judgment is impossible: enlightened genius or buffoonery? Avant-garde or mess?
I leave the decision to you.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 A Hymn to the Morning Star (05:40)
Open your heart to the lord of light
Open your heart and mind and let him in
He holds the key to the throne of might
You are empty, say his name...
And let him in
All hail the dawn of a rising star
All hail the crowned and conquering child
Morning will come for you at last, no matter how far into night
You have strayed, say his name...
Welcome the child
A new world is crawling
From the ashes of the old
Two thousand years of guilt and fear
And the greatest lie ever told
Out of the wounded side of the dying god
Out of the sacred heart of the throttled hen
The blood is the life, the flowing milk for the infant god
The throne is empty, the cup is full...
He approaches and then...
He steps from the shadow
And he opens up his eyes
He spills the blood onto the throne
And hurls a curse up to the skies
I am the adversary and must remain the adversary
03 Phthisis (03:44)
The future sticks out its tongue in the eyes of the gentle past
It fears its own demise but knows it cannot last
This momentary throne precariously formed from its ashes
It takes the time we thought was ours below to be reborn
Throw us away like a stack of old paper
Learn not from our scrawls
Close your ears to our rantings and come against us
Flex your hooked claws and sniff
Like a dog at the stench of our decaying minds
Distrust the deceitful math of our perishing eyes
Run away from the phthisicky past
04 Bring Back the Apocalypse (04:10)
Bring back, bring it back
Bring it, bring it back
Bring back the apocalypse
It's never too late for the end of time
05 FC: The Freedom Club (10:48)
Let us turn our backs on this world of ease
Let us turn our backs and walk away
Let us close our eyes to the glory of the machine
Let us close our eyes and walk away
The houses are all gone under the sea
The dancers are all gone under the hill
The houses are all gone under the sea
the dancers are all gone under the hill
"And let us dream now the impossible dream of a math professor"
Even when the last tree falls, there will be fire
Even when the last bird is caught, wooden boxes
Lovingly made by hands and filled up with fire
To blow off the hands of the strong with wooden boxes
"And let us never forget that the human race with technology is like an alcoholic with a barrel of wine"
Rise up! Bring down the Freedom Club! Rise up!
Dream your impossible dream
Crawl from the hole in the earth! Crawl!
The captains of this ship of fools are flesh, and softer than wood
The Freedom Club, the Freedom Club - Rage
The Freedom Club, the Freedom Club - Wait
The hermit of the woods is gone
They shan't take him down
And even though his mind now is corrupt
His desperate warning lives on
"Blandly titled industrial society and its future"
Rise up! Bring the funeral! Rise up!
Dream your impossible dream
Crawl from the hole in the earth! Crawl!
The captains of this ship of fools are flesh, and softer than wood
The Freedom Club, the Freedom Club - Rage
The Freedom Club, the Freedom Club - Wait
Let us lay to rest our future dream
Let us leave it to rust and walk away
Let us turn around on the road of progress
Let us go back the way we came
The houses are all gone under the sea (walk away, walk away)
The dancers are all gone under the hill (turn our backs, turn our backs)
The houses are all gone under the sea (close our eyes, close our eyes)
the dancers are all gone under the hill (turn around and go back the way we came)
"Because we can"
06 Gunday's Child (06:56)
M-day's child is fair of face,
Drill-day's child is full of grace,
Gun-day's child is breastless and blind,
Shell-day's child is out of its mind,
Bomb-day's child will always be dumb,
Cannon-day's child can never quite come,
But the child that's born on Battle-day is blithe and bonny and rotted away.
- Muriel Rukeyser
08 The Creature (06:00)
There is a creature. It has to feed.
It stops at nothing to fill its need.
The people live in gruesome squalor,
So that the creature may grow taller.
Those with nothing have to bleed,
To help the creature spread its seed.
They learn to dine on fecal matter,
So that the creature may grow fatter.
The creature tells of evil gnomes,
Coming to destroy our homes.
And trolls who come with gun and knife,
To threaten our way of life.
The creature has enslaved our town,
But no one thinks to bring it down.
Provided with so much distraction,
The people can't be moved to action.
And when the people are all dead,
Still the creature needs its bread.
When we've been sucked completely dry,
The creature needs its food supply
(a parasite cannot survive unless its host remains alive.)
It has amassed such awesome wealth,
Maybe it can eat itself.
10 Babydoctor (13:59)
(BABYDOCTOR - Three ways of staring at the sun)
Thank you Thank you Babydoctor
Babydoctor Thank you
And you count out the years you have been here
in this foreign land
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Fourteen years Here Jalal Jalal Babydoctor
And you cound out the years you've been deprived
the use of your hand
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Thirteen years Stroke
Straggering walker it takes you two lights
to cross the street
Traffic is backed-up here at the place
where cars and people meet
The very fast and the very slow
Beg for a ride and choke out a stream of words
as I drive
A mantra of thanks and counting out years that buries me alive
In the light of your humble and proud handful of
mispronounced words
And I fall to my knees in the shade of a tree and
cry Thank you
I look into the sun until it blinds me
I look into the sun until I go blind
I am raped by the light of the light until I am the
son of the sun
I am replaced
Hail and praise the all-seeing eye of Pelton & Crane
I open my mouth to the all-seeing eye of Pelton & Crane
Pelton & Crane I am replaced
Thank you
11 Cockroach (02:12)
(From the Inkblot theater show of the same name)
O loathsome crawling thing
Be done with your miniscule affairs
O hungry creeping speck
I release you from your cares Be gone Roach!
You live on carrion That's outrageous
You're probably contagious
Blind crippled and half-squashed
and yet you carry on
Your persistence is disgusting
I could never find myself trusting
A creature that would rather live in the trash than in the lawn
Cockroach your problems are not mine
I love life but with you I draw the line
Not to flaunt my superior design
But next to you I'm practically divine
Cockroach your problems are not mine
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