Lasciate perdere questo disco se siete orgogliosi di essere umani. Infatti, questi 59 e passa minuti sono una continua demolizione e distruzione di ciò che rimane di umano, consueto, regolare in voi.
Introduciamo innanzitutto il gruppo, una formazione funambolica (da Oakland) che ruota intorno a due ex membri degli Idiot Flesh, Nils Frykdahl e Dan Rathbun, e alla brava Carla Kihlstedt. Il trio si è fatto accompagnare, nei suoi otto anni, da una selva di percussionisti e batteristi (quasi sempre in coppia anche sul palco), fra cui spicca Moe! Staiano.
Va detto che, se pensavate di essere abituati a musica folle, qui avrete di che ricredervi: i folli sono gli stessi musicisti, noti negli Iuessèi per le loro straordinarie performance, più simili ad esibizioni teatrico-musicali d'avanguardia che a concerti, costantemente imbottiti dei make-up più strani mai visti (anche un po' troppo naif per i miei gusti, gh) e con una notevole attitudine a fabbricarsi strumenti, elemento prevalente nel nostro Rathbun nazionale che sul palco, oltre ad un classico basso, porta una quantità di percussioni self-made oltre ad un bestiale strumento realizzato con corde di pianoforte. Se non li vedi, non ci credi (youtube è un fedele amico in questo senso).
Ora, descrivere la musica di questo branco di matti non è nemmeno tanto difficile. La si può riassumere in una semplice frase: niente che abbiate già sentito. E niente che sentirete più, dopo di loro. Ma proprio più più più (cit. ). Il loro eclettismo è così vasto - ed ambizioso - da poter essere accostato a quello dei maudlin of the Well. Tuttavia, straordinariamente, i nostri californiani riescono ad essere ancora più inconsueti, a spaziare in territori ancora più vasti ed informi, dove la musica non ha un nome (né metal, né post-rock, né hardcore, new wave, indie… niente) e noi poveri esseri umani possiamo solo parlare d'avanguardia, o, meglio, di sperimentazione. Oltre il rock, pur vivendo anche dentro di un'anima almeno in parte rock. Dove si passa da momenti corali, reminescenze soul, teneri falsetti (A Hymn to the Morning Star), e improvvise esplosioni ritmico-chitarristiche di stampo quasi math (the Donkey-Headed Adversary of Humanity), incastri compositivi prettamente sperimentali, fino a ritmi tribali eppure talmente irregolari da lasciare impietriti (la spettacolare Phthisis). Dissonanza e melodia vengono accostati in modo sfrontato e sfacciato.
A volte l'impressione definitiva è quella di assistere ad un culto antico e misterioso, qualcosa di primordiale che trascende la stessa idea di umanità. Alle volte invece è l'impressione teatrale a vincere, spettacolo bizzarro fino all'eccesso, bizzarria che viene estremizzata al punto da perdere ogni termine di paragone, entrando in un non-luogo dell'arte dove il giudizio finale è impossibile: genialità illuminata o buffoneria? Avanguardia o pastrocchio?
Faccio decidere a voi.
Elenco tracce testi e video
01 A Hymn to the Morning Star (05:40)
Open your heart to the lord of light
Open your heart and mind and let him in
He holds the key to the throne of might
You are empty, say his name...
And let him in
All hail the dawn of a rising star
All hail the crowned and conquering child
Morning will come for you at last, no matter how far into night
You have strayed, say his name...
Welcome the child
A new world is crawling
From the ashes of the old
Two thousand years of guilt and fear
And the greatest lie ever told
Out of the wounded side of the dying god
Out of the sacred heart of the throttled hen
The blood is the life, the flowing milk for the infant god
The throne is empty, the cup is full...
He approaches and then...
He steps from the shadow
And he opens up his eyes
He spills the blood onto the throne
And hurls a curse up to the skies
I am the adversary and must remain the adversary
03 Phthisis (03:44)
The future sticks out its tongue in the eyes of the gentle past
It fears its own demise but knows it cannot last
This momentary throne precariously formed from its ashes
It takes the time we thought was ours below to be reborn
Throw us away like a stack of old paper
Learn not from our scrawls
Close your ears to our rantings and come against us
Flex your hooked claws and sniff
Like a dog at the stench of our decaying minds
Distrust the deceitful math of our perishing eyes
Run away from the phthisicky past
04 Bring Back the Apocalypse (04:10)
Bring back, bring it back
Bring it, bring it back
Bring back the apocalypse
It's never too late for the end of time
05 FC: The Freedom Club (10:48)
Let us turn our backs on this world of ease
Let us turn our backs and walk away
Let us close our eyes to the glory of the machine
Let us close our eyes and walk away
The houses are all gone under the sea
The dancers are all gone under the hill
The houses are all gone under the sea
the dancers are all gone under the hill
"And let us dream now the impossible dream of a math professor"
Even when the last tree falls, there will be fire
Even when the last bird is caught, wooden boxes
Lovingly made by hands and filled up with fire
To blow off the hands of the strong with wooden boxes
"And let us never forget that the human race with technology is like an alcoholic with a barrel of wine"
Rise up! Bring down the Freedom Club! Rise up!
Dream your impossible dream
Crawl from the hole in the earth! Crawl!
The captains of this ship of fools are flesh, and softer than wood
The Freedom Club, the Freedom Club - Rage
The Freedom Club, the Freedom Club - Wait
The hermit of the woods is gone
They shan't take him down
And even though his mind now is corrupt
His desperate warning lives on
"Blandly titled industrial society and its future"
Rise up! Bring the funeral! Rise up!
Dream your impossible dream
Crawl from the hole in the earth! Crawl!
The captains of this ship of fools are flesh, and softer than wood
The Freedom Club, the Freedom Club - Rage
The Freedom Club, the Freedom Club - Wait
Let us lay to rest our future dream
Let us leave it to rust and walk away
Let us turn around on the road of progress
Let us go back the way we came
The houses are all gone under the sea (walk away, walk away)
The dancers are all gone under the hill (turn our backs, turn our backs)
The houses are all gone under the sea (close our eyes, close our eyes)
the dancers are all gone under the hill (turn around and go back the way we came)
"Because we can"
06 Gunday's Child (06:56)
M-day's child is fair of face,
Drill-day's child is full of grace,
Gun-day's child is breastless and blind,
Shell-day's child is out of its mind,
Bomb-day's child will always be dumb,
Cannon-day's child can never quite come,
But the child that's born on Battle-day is blithe and bonny and rotted away.
- Muriel Rukeyser
08 The Creature (06:00)
There is a creature. It has to feed.
It stops at nothing to fill its need.
The people live in gruesome squalor,
So that the creature may grow taller.
Those with nothing have to bleed,
To help the creature spread its seed.
They learn to dine on fecal matter,
So that the creature may grow fatter.
The creature tells of evil gnomes,
Coming to destroy our homes.
And trolls who come with gun and knife,
To threaten our way of life.
The creature has enslaved our town,
But no one thinks to bring it down.
Provided with so much distraction,
The people can't be moved to action.
And when the people are all dead,
Still the creature needs its bread.
When we've been sucked completely dry,
The creature needs its food supply
(a parasite cannot survive unless its host remains alive.)
It has amassed such awesome wealth,
Maybe it can eat itself.
10 Babydoctor (13:59)
(BABYDOCTOR - Three ways of staring at the sun)
Thank you Thank you Babydoctor
Babydoctor Thank you
And you count out the years you have been here
in this foreign land
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Fourteen years Here Jalal Jalal Babydoctor
And you cound out the years you've been deprived
the use of your hand
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Thirteen years Stroke
Straggering walker it takes you two lights
to cross the street
Traffic is backed-up here at the place
where cars and people meet
The very fast and the very slow
Beg for a ride and choke out a stream of words
as I drive
A mantra of thanks and counting out years that buries me alive
In the light of your humble and proud handful of
mispronounced words
And I fall to my knees in the shade of a tree and
cry Thank you
I look into the sun until it blinds me
I look into the sun until I go blind
I am raped by the light of the light until I am the
son of the sun
I am replaced
Hail and praise the all-seeing eye of Pelton & Crane
I open my mouth to the all-seeing eye of Pelton & Crane
Pelton & Crane I am replaced
Thank you
11 Cockroach (02:12)
(From the Inkblot theater show of the same name)
O loathsome crawling thing
Be done with your miniscule affairs
O hungry creeping speck
I release you from your cares Be gone Roach!
You live on carrion That's outrageous
You're probably contagious
Blind crippled and half-squashed
and yet you carry on
Your persistence is disgusting
I could never find myself trusting
A creature that would rather live in the trash than in the lawn
Cockroach your problems are not mine
I love life but with you I draw the line
Not to flaunt my superior design
But next to you I'm practically divine
Cockroach your problems are not mine
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