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Rating: By now even the most die-hard fans of Jamie Stewart (and I'm an utterly hopeless case) have lost count of the projects, splits, and new bands that this strange and brilliant young man with a kitten-like face scatters throughout his career. So, when he detaches from his Xiu Xiu, he occasionally starts new bands, abandons them, goes for a walk with Freddy Ruppert's Former Ghosts and Zola Jesus, or with the Larsen, makes random appearances in albums of other bands (including Horse The Band), releases incomprehensible noise songs, and puts out a mysterious and enigmatic solo album recorded at twelve and for years buried in a pile of trauma, dust, and depressions.
Even I, so fascinated by his overflowing originality and artistic creativity, his themes, his being a twelve-year-old in an adult's body, his ability to dare, to plunge headfirst where others wouldn't even dare to poke a finger, his highly personal and desperate idea of music, remain sometimes unaware of what he does, of what he's doing, of what he's thinking. And only today have I learned about the Teen Plaque.
So, purely by chance. A schizophrenic trio of raw and pure punk, where little Jamie (voice and bass) is joined by Tim The Mute (voice and guitar) from Shiny Diamonds and the Mexican wrestler (!!!!!) El Searlo on drums.
Only one record released by the band, which is actually an ep that lasts as long as a Ramones song: "Teen Plaque Text Message/Fuck The Revolution!!!".
Two tracks that, in their short duration, unleash a dry and gritty punk, noisy, immensely loud, terribly anarchistic, as the genre should be.
Jamie screams like the damned, while his snack companions weave beneath him a loud embrace of raw and utterly violent sounds. And it's a mosh pit, and it's blood, and it's spit on the ground.
Three friends getting together in the garage and starting to shout "Let's all fuck off!", a release as powerful as a fist straight to the eye. Because this ep doesn't aim to be serious music, but first and foremost an exasperated outlet, an attempt to return to those times when, as a kid, you formed a band to express yourself, to stand out, to have fun and break apart. And you didn't care if people wouldn't like your songs, because they were what you were. What you would have been.
This is why this ep is so fascinating: it is a scream that bursts and exhausts itself, and then starts again, and then disintegrates. A castle of rage that is built when you return home from work tired and angry at the world, hug a guitar, and start screaming wildly for three minutes, then set everything back and go have dinner.
Because even in this music so raw and violent for no reason, Stewart has managed to stage, yet again, human malaise. A clean cut in a clear sky, a bomb exploding in a blooming garden. It is brief, it is swift, and even if everything will return as before, it existed.
This is the beauty of music.
Even when it is extremely ignorant, it stays with you for a while. And it kisses you, whispering "I'll help you survive."
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