New Music: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Damo Suzuki, Alexander Tucker, Hi Red Center

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Damo Suzuki - Please Heat This Eventually Part IV (GSL 2007)

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Damo Suzuki – Please Heat This Eventually / GSL

Fittingly enough, my first introduction to krautrock masterminds and genre-defying pioneers Can was through Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. I was somewhat a latecomer to the spastic world of At the Drive-In; a late night viewing of the ‘One Armed Scissor’ video on MTV in my later high school years sent me on the 45-minute drive to the closest decent record store (the vast isles of the now defunct Manifest Discs & Tapes) early the next morning to pick up their discography. The band broke up shortly thereafter, but I kept a close eye on the members as new projects began to surface. I dug the first Sparta record (shhh, don’t tell anyone) and De Facto influenced my exploration into the wonderful world of dub music, but I felt nothing was quite as explosive as the first Mars Volta EP, Tremulant. From that point on to a few months after the release of De-Loused, The Mars Volta was my shit; I ranted, I raved, I played it for anyone who would listen and I studied their influences. In one interview I read with guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, he commented on what a big influence Can was on the group, especially Tago Mago, and how they basically wouldn’t exist without the band’s sonic experiments in the 70s. So, being the astute fan I was, the next morning I ravaged a different branch of Manifest (I was loyal to the store, even worked there in the waning moments of their existence) of their Can discography. Well that was a few years ago, and though my interest in the Mars Volta has subsided a good amount, I still respect them as amazing musicians and creative minds. And now there is this! A collaboration between Rodriguez-Lopez and one-time Can frontman Kenji “Damo” Suzuki featuring fellow Volta members and keyboardist Money Mark of Beastie Boys fame and many other projects. Suzuki is a fun character; the Japanese street poet was discovered by the members of Can in 1970, took over the lead singer position from Malcolm Mooney and retained the post through ’74 (the four year span is considered the most productive from Can) when he opted out for the exciting career of a Jehovah Witness. After a decade absence from music, Damo returned with groups that sported his name but never came closed to the quality of his recordings with Can. Perhaps he just hadn’t found the right musician to compliment his creative energy, or rather, he just hadn’t crossed paths with Rodriguez-Lopez yet. Their first collaboration is a 30-minute suite called Please Heat This Eventually, available on vinyl only, and features sweltering progressive free-jazz rock that works almost as an update to the wonderful sonic experiments of Can. Obviously, since the group consists of mostly Mars Volta members that is going to be the closest music correlation and a correct one, but it just seems to overreach the freewheeling concepts of the love-or-hate prog-rock band. There are a couple reasons I have come up for this. First, the replacement of Cedric Bixler-Zavala by Suzuki creates a formidable difference. Bixler’s rampant yelps may be similar in style (and were certainly influenced by Damo) but Suzuki’s voice is a good number of octaves lower and he tends to growl in almost a jazz scat manner. This strips the vocals of the ability to narrate so they become an instrument in themself which retracts some of the pretentiousness I believe. Second, while The Mars Volta stems from the geeky (but not untalented) prog-rock bands like Yes, this collaboration emphasizes the early-70s Can influence giving the sound a darker, more avant-garde feel rather than the more whimsical sides of mid-70s prog-rock. Don’t worry though, it really should please fans of both sides of the progressive split along with connoisseur’s of free jazz and fusion. My favorite moments come during parts 3 and 4. Part 3 features a gummy bass-line dueling with a spastic flute and Omar’s emphatic electric while Damo gawks with uncivilized tone. Part 4 begins in the same manner but erodes into free jazz tenor sax outbursts, glittering percussion and electronic noise before disappearing into the quiet fifth section. I am unsure of exactly which kind of listener this will reach though. The initial crowd of Mars Volta fans seems to be long gone and replaced by more mainstream alt-metal kids, but I believe this will be too much for them. And it sounds a bit weird to say it, but it will probably sound too Mars Volta to reach die-hard Can fans. Who is left that is paying attention? I am going to suggest that if you are like me and was in the first wave of Volta nerds along with being early 00s GSL followers, go pick this up. It should rekindle your warm feelings towards Rodriguez-Lopez and let you bask in his ridiculous musicianship once again.






Alexander Tucker - You Are Many (ATP Recordings 2006)

Alexander Tucker – Furrowed Brow / ATP Recordings

I’m always up for a good pastoral folk album, but they rarely hold my attention for too long. Say we replace ‘pastoral’ with ‘spectral’ and conjure up a lost cabin-like ambiance to the record, ok now I’m a little more interested. Let’s keep going and place this cabin in the middle of a dark field, surround that dark field with thick fog, sprinkle that thick fog with menacing creatures and drop the songwriter into the dim lit hut with an acoustic and a tape reel; now we are getting to some attention-keeping Furrowed Brow territory. UK-based Alexander Tucker is a man of many discerning musical talents that creep up sporadically throughout his songs. He can pick the guitar with the best of the rural folkies, he can harmonize his voice in both pleasant and unsettling ways, he can delicately conduct a relaxing atmosphere of sounds, he can stew up some droning noise through detuned guitars, feedback and white noise, he can layer tape loops in a wishy-washy Paw Tracks method and he can even summon the great voices of free jazz when needed; no wonder he caught the attention of Jackie-O-Motherfucker’s Tom Greenwood. Along with being a handful of a multi-instrumentalist himself, Tucker has also played with Unhome, Fuxa, Duke Garwood and Little Wet Horse as well as collaborating with SunO)))’s Stephen O’Malley under Ginnungagap. His latest for ATP Recordings (Deerhoof, Bardo Pond), the aptly titled Furrowed Brow, fits into this latest trend of doomy folk bands like Flying Canyon (to a degree, a genre Ghost is responsible for creating) that are anchored in the sounds of pastoral, backwoods folk but spin off into unsuspecting and often noisy territory. The opening track, ‘You Are Many,’ is a perfect example: it begins with delicate finger picking and Tucker’s harmonized voice in a pleasant manner, but slowly broods and at the four-minute mark distorted banjo starts creeping in followed by a crunchy electric that finishes off the dynamic leap. ‘Broken Dome’ is 7-minutes of rising free-jazz hysteria while the following track, ‘Saddest Summer’, is delicately echoing acoustic and soft, wavering distortions. And so the seven-song album progresses, but Furrowed Brow is not inaccessible by any means, in fact the dynamic shifts make it just that much easier for the music to keep your undivided attention.







Hi Red Center - Magic Teeth (Pangaea 2006)

Hi Red Center – Architectural Failures / Pangaea

I got to give Hi Red Center props for naming their debut album Architectural Failures, because quite frankly, most listeners would hear his record and say there is something fundamentally wrong with these song structures. They’re angular, obtuse and not one of the pieces fit together right; in other words, a whole lot of avant-rock fun. Their singer/guitarist Ben Lanz whips out a trombone on occasion, the drummer and bass player rarely stick on a groove for more than twenty seconds and Russell Greenberg regularly tackles electronics, the vibraphone and even acts as a second drummer on occasion. The unfocused aim of the band will be make-or-break for most ears, but more open-minded listeners will find something they like about this record. Throughout the ten tracks of Architectural Failure you get healthy doses of angular rock, thumping post-punk, frenzied pop, a little kraut-rock, some throbbing post-rock and they even drift into Modern Jazz Quartet territory on a few occasions. I question the need for vocals in such already cluttered territory, but when attacked from a shout-along direction, they actually work quite nicely. Originally self-released in 2005, it was re-released by Ohio’s Pangaea Recordings in 2006 and just now starting to get some promotion so it’s good to jot down this name, because Hi Red Center very well could be a band blossoming with their next album.