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Rating: I find myself inside the cover of "Endtroducing" and as I search through the new releases shelf, I come across this "Nights Temper EP" which promises to be a prelude to the imminent new work from the pointed-eared aliens: "War Stories". Like sulfur in the presence of demons, I catch a strange scent: the pointed-eared aliens move fast and you never see them coming, but their spaceship reeks of diesel mixed with wet metal. I have four splendid tracks in my hands, which compel me to rip the entire double vinyl into mp3 so I can carry it around all day and press play. 5 stars to the best purchase of recent months: often good music is all I ask from this planet.
James Lavelle, Mr. ‘Mo Wax’ himself, is a phenomenon in combining different musical styles, weaving them to transcend their limits and create something new and independent from the original ingredients. He is one of the two pointed-eared aliens who, under the moniker U.N.K.L.E. in 1998, swept the musical landscape with one of the decade's best albums, "Psyence Fiction". The other alien, back then, was Josh "there's something in the music that hits me more than words, and it's the rhythm" Davis aka DJ Shadow, while today it's his roommate and partner Richard File with whom he repeated the success in 2003 after "Never Never Land". And to say one thing right away, unlike the now-distant DJ Shadow (more oriented toward hip-hop, soul, and funk), James's incontestable affliction is surely rock: for us, the affliction is the inability not to be fascinated by the way both conceive music.
Now, "Nights Temper" previews four tracks from the upcoming full-length, and its coordinates seem to align with rock forms pushed to the extreme this time: everything is entirely played by human bodies and perfected by bionic infrastructures just below the level of advanced technology. Leave the previous (extraordinary) ones behind and tune into the new: there's no electronic music here in the strict sense. Because it's a record entirely recorded at the Rancho de la Luna (the new Mecca of rock and home base for the Queens of the Stone Age), co-produced by Chris Goss (same circle, same house, and also the bandleader by seniority) and finally boasts a frightening array of guests who only use tube amplifiers for their music.
"Nights Temper" is, in short, damn dirty and warm.
"Chemistry" is a small instrumental work with the dark charm of a Mogwai piece covered by Queens of the Stone Age for a Wim Wenders film soundtrack. And no wonder. Guess who plays the guitar? Josh ""Ubiquity is red-haired" Homme, naturally. Then the voices. Those of James Lavelle and Richard File themselves debut in "Morning Rage"; a drum beat that is so ‘present’ you can feel the skins vibrating under the blows, the "raw and bare" bass (Pablo Clements from Psychonauts) and a deployment of guitars between hard rock and fairy tale shoegaze. "Persons & Machinery" (already from the title, a perfect synthesis of the mood breathed in this ep) calls all Autolux together to chip away at a splendid electro-pop between Air and Radiohead. Closing with the magnificent "May Day" with a vaguely retro '80s flavor: Liela Moss's voice from the Duke Spirit hypnotizes this sensual stomp that could be the best thing ever written by the Gun Club.
That’s all. It’s a lot.
The point is that for James Lavelle and associates, music is a physiological need of primary necessity. Building, transforming, recreating are part of the mutant genetics of their disposition like a form of multi-impressionistic art.
And with these premises, it seems that the imminent "War Stories" will be the best album of 2007.
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