The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Aufheben

“I’m Beginning To See The Light”

So sang the Velvet Underground on their third and quiet album, as if to imply that heroin was a memory and that John Cale's departure hadn't shaken them. And it is precisely with this phrase that one could summarize the current mental state of Anton Newcombe, the eccentric mastermind behind the group/project Brian Jonestown Massacre, now celebrating two decades of activity.

The Velvet Underground reference fits perfectly because it hints at one side of the triangle that defines the three major influences on the Brian Jonestown sound: Velvet Underground, as mentioned, Rolling Stones roughly around the “Aftermath” period (but with such a name, it's almost obligatory to mention them), and Spacemen 3/shoegaze remnants. These are the three pillars, at least until the turning point with “My Bloody Underground” four years ago, where Newcombe reinvented the band (which had been plagued over the years by reshuffles and tumultuous departures of various founding members) and expanded his musical spectrum to encompass classical avant-garde, percussive kraut, and pure drone.

Released a few months ago, “Aufheben” is perhaps the best album of the new era and coincides with our Maestro's revived artistic vigor, who seems to have finally left behind heroin dependence and delusions of grandeur and omnipotence (a significant signal of this is the return after 10 years of his friend Matt Hollywood). A more direct and almost pop work compared to the aforementioned “My Bloody Underground” or the subsequent “Who Killed Sgt. Pepper” from 2010, where the balance between mystical kraut structures and pop melody reaches levels of unexpected perfection. Precisely the mantra-like iteration typical of both the beloved 60's psychedelic music and the Teutonic motorik sound is the key to interpreting the album, which, coincidentally, was recorded in Berlin and whose title alludes (probably) to the concept of sublimation dear to Hegel, where a term is both preserved and modified by interaction with another term.

A perfect example of what happens throughout the album, in which past loves are transfigured through an ethnic and kraut lens, still remaining recognizable albeit subtly, only to suddenly manifest, as in the sitar phrasings taken straight from “Paint It Black” (“Stairway To The Best Party In The Universe”, the album's only moment of similar plagiarism). The rest is a flourish of discordant and staggering moments (“I Want To Hold Your Other Hand”, pay attention to the subtle self-irony in the album titles, which say a lot about the desire to not take the new Newcombe too seriously), instrumental anthems played at the imaginary convergence of the Indo, Euphrates, and Rhine (“Panic In Babylon”), unthinkable electro-pop exercises Notwist style, but in Finnish and under acid (“Viholliseni Maalla”), discordant ballads in French complete with flute (“Illuminomi”) and flutes on the moon (“Face Down On The Moon”) leading to the final and beautiful “Waking Up To Hand Grenade” and “Blue Order, New Monday”, percussive and hypnotic the first, pastoral and drugged the second.

Surely among the personal albums of the year, and a small gem of psychedelia finally aimed at communicating with the outside world and not just with one's inner self.

Welcome back, Anton.