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Rating: - Truly incredible and practically indescribable music, unless one considers plausible the idea of a meeting in a third-rate club in the most opium-laden New York between Eric Dolphy and the Karate, that bastard Mingus accompanied by enlightened Morphine on the road to Damascus of a jazz metamorphosing into funk, bringing Gil Scott-Heron along. And even then, it doesn’t come close to describing them... seeing them live was a force of nature. – truly, one can hardly ever contradict sir soulman.
Thanks to some evening chats, I've returned to the usual soul coughing cloud for a few days now; as they say, deep slacker jazz, where deep is the funk, slacker is the mood, and jazz is sugarfree*; B-Sides, Rarities and Live Cuts is a compilation I've seen online over the years, skimming through the long roll, picking from the mellifluous B-sides of singles and odd rarities among soundtracks and best ofs; unfortunately, such beauty does not exist on any physical, live, or vivid medium; and I repeat, unfortunately, because if you talk about them with even a simple - and voluminous - handful of b-sides, it would easily become a masterpiece album; but when I get the chance, I talk about them as my beloved ones, I might go overboard with opinions and I allow myself to use the best of cover with a smile.
The fundamental characteristic of their trajectories perhaps lies in the indomitable grooves that only these four wily musicians have managed to idealize; sometimes entirely extemporaneous sound snippets on a persistent base of intense funk, where often the mood is noir and slips into the shadows as in 212; even previously heard riffs astonish, creating wind with a sneeze and continuously reassembling rhythm and melody; he talks and talks, repeats, repeats smoke sense sense smoke smoke, and it's always nice to find the most disparate intersections, like mechanized electronics on the aching steps of Lemon Lime, one of the best pieces here for me, with startling lyrics where words dance and essentially do not sing, a metaphorical rap that directs the orchestra where the double bass resembles a double-door wardrobe; I must say, we like them even as a cover band, these soul coffee; and then Jaaaaniiiiinee I driiink you up, LOUDLOUDLOUD**
Whether it's a seductive floozy or a picturesque binge, the cartoonish movements leave the imagination wide open, but in a deformed manner and with that sense of the grotesque similar to Primus, always on different geometries compared to the very first; what has form is consistently disproportionate, post-modern art in a gallery of the native city that never sleeps; the arrangements are ungainly, the sound within the intricate tracks is minimal, and in the essentiality of the embellishments are the samples that fill every void; as I see/hear it, no Mark no coughing, see the current sir Doughty.
Although it is heterogeneous music, tracks picked apart over the years even if kept together cannot maintain a linearity of sound and approach, but here they remain united by the interesting structures throughout their career; a sparse style, with a formula written on a thin carbon paper making it difficult to take inspiration without tracing them too much; this is where for me music has managed to be truly incredible, no one like them.
(*) sugarfreejazz
(**) excerpt from Live From The 9:30 Club In Washington, D.C. On October 25, 1998, the live set can be found in its entirety on Rolling, the last single; highly recommended, but why even mention it...
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
05 The Bug (02:41)
Slipping through the wrong plug
Slap the rotor to the beat yeah
Stitching to till the pin breaks
Gotcha down
Onto the flatline
Clap the matter
It's the drop
How?
Revvin' it up into the stomp box
Sunkified gasman
Tripping in his own dribble
Tripping in the white man's outlay
Capitalism now
Screaming on a fat tomato
With a scream girl
Lips are thicker then a cow
Chorus:
I knew the bug
His wire running down into the hole
Greedy girl you're gonna snatch my soul (x3)
Supple backed a pole town
One two one two
Drumming on a guess
And I can't stand it
When a dream comes
Guzzling up the whole brain stem
I can not give up
And just stick this
But in the same way
Thought is useless
But you just come
Knock knock knocking
On a straw door
I could lose you for a nickel
But you just don't hear me
You don't stop.....
Chorus
Move it to the left side
Bump it to the right side
Move it to the left side
Bump it to the right side
(bump it, bump it, yeah)
Chorus
I knew the bug
His wire running down into the hole
Greedy girl you're gonna snatch my soul
Rum
Come on
Shake it on now
One time
Why?
Shake it
So many ineffective
One time
Like SOC's
Oh come on
06 16 Horses (02:39)
At 14,000 times a second
The speaker moves
Magnetism pushes
The impulse through
But I can't keep that speed
I can't generate that frequency
What the sound pressure level means
Wants a randomized electrons
I can't read
And you're still not dancing
She came pushing sixteen
She came pushing sixteen horses
I saw her and thought of her and thought of her
And I thought I heard a doorbell tone
And I thought I saw, thought I saw and thought I saw
You watching from the lawn
She went over bridges like the river was a dream, dream
Over bridges like the river was a dream, dream
She came pushing sixteen
She came pushing sixteen horses
Two rings, two rings, two rings, clamp down
Quit it
Two rings, two rings, two rings, clamp down
Quit it
Two rings, two rings, two rings, clamp down
Quit it
Two rings, two rings, two rings, clamp down
Quit it
She came pushing sixteen
She came pushing sixteen
She came pushing sixteen
She came pushing sixteen horses
07 Unmarked Helicopters (03:23)
Whose song is that remembered?
At random, surpenting
Throught fatty coils, emerging
some other thought it's thinking
this light
stands above the
houses
on the ground
this illumination
visited upon the whole land
unmarked helicopters
hovering
the lord is coming soon
here comes the super copter
here comes the noise it makes
the demon was an idea
the demon is awake
scratch mark traced across the
surface of your mind
this hour, now upon us
the hour, now arrived
unmarked helicopters
hovering
the lord is coming soon
unmarked helicopters
hovering
they said it was a weather balloon
but i know the truth
i know the whole shebang
i know the names of men they had to hang
i let her out the trunk
heard what she said at them
they've come to drag us through the double M
it goes black black black black and blacker
it goes black black black black and blacker
it goes black black black black and blacker
it goes black black black black and blacker
unmarked helicopters
hovering
the lord is coming soon
unmarked helicopters
hovering
they said it was a weather balloon
it was a weather balloon
it was a weather balloon
it was a weather balloon
it was a weather balloon
it was a weather balloon
08 The Brooklynites (03:38)
Theme From Rachel's Sitcom
[This Song's Background]
Rachel's on the phone
talking to her Mom
Just to wish her a happy Mother's Day
Rachel's on the couch
Suckin' on the bong
Just so she can call her Mom
Rachel's on the phone
talking to her Mom
"Hi, Mom, it's me, Rachel."
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