You know what happened to them?
You know what they do?
What they became?
(“Darlene”)
1987, Louisville (Kentucky), a group of guys in their twenties, listen to good music, but they listen to it blasting, they listen to so much of it that it makes their ears bleed. They dive into hardcore, prog, kraut, yes even kraut, but above all, they love to Experiment. One was named Brian McMahon (guitar and vocals, already a guitarist in Squirrel Bait, not that he knew how to sing, but more so he didn't love doing it like all normal people), the others were: Ethan Buckler (bass), Britt Walford (drums) and a very cool guy on the second guitar, David Pajo. At that time, a pretty boring genre had exploded in the city of Seattle, grunge. They couldn't stand it.
A three-headed being named Steve Albini had seen them play, they had shaken hands occasionally, one day they recorded an album released only in 1989. Tweez, the tracks are 9, each dedicated to a parent of the boys, the ninth is dedicated to one of the four's dog. They were eccentric, musically anarchic, fucking strange, Mr. Pajo knew how to play, oh did he know how to play, but he didn't love solos, instead, he did strange things he called “pseudo-weird-things-similar-but-not-too-much-to-solos.” They all would occasionally go off time, just to pass the boredom, they loved odd numbers, or often Brian would start speaking in the middle of a piece, get pissed off, make strange noises with his mouth, or fake orgasms (“Kent”, “Warren”). Noises, dissonances, the compositional overlaps of “Rhoda”, other acrobatic ways of playing the strings of a guitar (“Nan Ding”) and acid, lots of acid. The air grew heavy because the music was heavy and acidic, but it was nice to let yourself go under a mountain of schizophrenic and contorted noises, just as Albini liked. The guitars were increasingly distorted, dirty yet mechanical (“Charlotte”) even if they often let themselves go into something seemingly calm, immersing themselves in splendid arpeggios inlay (“Darlene”), only to start again with abstract compositional drawings that recall a pseudo-crossover bathed in wonderful bass lines(“Pat”).
Well, these guys a few years later would record one of the masterpieces in the history of rock, the much-loved Spiderland, yes they invented what all the punk jerks of my balls (offlaga, ndr) call Post-Rock. This album is a conduit, a draft of what is to come, just like the confused lyrics of the record, an artistic chaos. The art of silence (which still whispers), the autistic rock apparently devoid of emotions is actually a message, a real state of mind, a beating heart. It is the same principle as classical music, which here goes to meet the rough, distorted, and diseased sound of rock.
"And the solo became riff, the riff became Drone... the Rock became Art."
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
03 Carol (03:40)
Past where the river bends.
Past where the silo stands.
Past where they paint the houses.
Past where they paint the houses.
Take away, something that you know.
The reason, that you're always there.
Use it, 'til you're through.
But remember, when the time comes,
You got to let go.
Past where the river bends.
Past where the silo stands.
Past where they paint the houses.
Past where they paint the houses.
06 Darlene (03:05)
I knew these two people.
And, um...a boy and a girl,
And they liked to hang together.
They were nice people.
Um...they were the people,
That made you feel good
To be around.
Anyway, the thing was,
One day, they started acting
Kinda funny...kinda weird.
They started being seen,
Exchanging tokens of affection.
And there were rumors that they were,
Engaging in(?).
I think that they'd run out of time.
You know what happened to them?
You know what they do?
What they became?
You know what happened to them?
You know what they do?
What they became?
You know what happened to them?
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