(This record review originally appeared in the SF Weekly.)
I keep thinking this disc is some old, warped cassette of ritualistic worship music created by an esoteric California fertility cult that spent the mid-’70s organically fusing classical Indian ragas, the solemn chants of a Tibetan tantric choir, Velvet Underground-inspired experimentation with lo-fi tape hiss, and ghostly, falsetto-rich doo-wop balladry from the mid-’50s. However! I do know who made this sublime batch of cosmic soul-noise — the Wooden Cupboard (a pseudonym employed by James Ferraro, Mission denizen and one-half of the psych-noise duo the Skaters). From what I’ve learned, Ferraro enters his bedroom with a tattered array of gear (guitar, minisynth, microphone, tapes, hand-held percussion, four-track recorder, etc.) and, after several hours, exits feeling rather stunned — coming down from what can be described as an “ecstatic spiritual state.” Now, I have no idea if you and I possess spirits, but I can tell you that the droning ululations of Ferraro do, indeed, speak to that side of me I would label “religious.” This is religious music — strange, gloriously shimmering religious music — proof that pop, underground noise, and Eastern mysticism can be fused into a profoundly meditative listening experience.
Before his latest release, the Corndawg (aka Johnny Fritz of Philadelphia) was known exclusively as a musical prankster crooning obscene, country-fried novelty songs like “Is It Too Late to Abort?” But Fritz’s talent is no cheap joke. He’s a magnetic performer and great songwriter possessing an achingly lonesome, Appalachian falsetto (he’s Southern by birth), and it’s these qualities that Fritz explores in greater detail on The Liberated North. Perfectly encapsulating his sudden and dramatic quantum leap from white-trash comedian to sophisticated satirist of American rural life is the record’s gem, titled “Pregnant Scare.” Over a bouncing progression of guitar, banjo, and accordion, the Corndawg becomes a man terrified to come home and learn if he’s impregnated his girlfriend (yet again): “But darling, I can’t afford another boy to feed/ I hope you ain’t got no child inside of you.” Then the Corndawg’s pained wail adopts an added dimension of desperation and delusion: “I dreamed I saw my son and he was washed up onshore/ Baby, every lie you tell, the waves and the rocks they tear him more and more.” Look, I love cheap, locker-room humor, but Fritz’s new direction possesses so much more possibility that I can’t wait to hear what becomes of it.
A fellow music critic recently e-mailed me saying, “the descent of all this ‘experimental’ music into new age… is… NOT a good thing.” The two records he cited as examples of this “pretentious crap” were Black Dice’s Beaches and Canyons and this new split CD featuring two extended pieces: one from the New York duo Growing, and the other from modern pianist Mark Evan Burden. Growing’s track, “Firmament,” is a 19-minute snail-slow burn consisting of three heavy, interpenetrating layers of undulating, smoothly rippling cosmic-electronic frequencies. Through the employment of guitars, electronics, and massive amplification, Growing has sculpted the low-end sonic rumble of doom metal into a pristine, almost icy soundscape reminiscent of Eno’s New Age-defining Ambient series. Burden’s contribution, the 15-minute composition for piano and electronics titled “10/24/02,” complements Growing’s because — although Burden pounds those ivories — his chief concern is generating expansive resonances via the precise execution of repetitive, geometric clusters of sparkling piano notes. Both pieces are quite excellent and both do, indeed, feel rather, hmm, “New Agey.” (My wife actually performs yoga to “Firmament.”) Then again, I don’t believe New Age music (or any other music for that matter) is by definition shitty music closed to experimentation. Challenging art can be created from ANYTHING.
As a tool for deep-sonic exploration, the human voice doesn’t see much action these days. Sure, it’s one of the last human confections still sweetening up most pop music (indie and mainstream). But for musicians operating on American culture’s more expressively extreme outer fringes, the human voice typically plays a supporting role (at best) to electronics, guitars, laptops, etc. Renegades, however, are always out there. Take S.F. duo (sometimes trio) the Skaters. Within their universe of sound, the human voice is the omnipresent life force powering EVERYTHING. Of course, it’s a realization hard-earned for the listener, because this LP, Dark Rye Bread, is as statically charged — with walls of droning feedback and crackling distortion — as just about any electronic-noise freakout extant. However, reckless noise this isn’t, not by a long shot. After several concentrated listenings, these six pieces for voice mutate into brilliant sunbursts dispersing waves of shamanic howls, cat-horny ululations, and reverberating growls that, through the Skaters’ thoughtful use of controlled breathing, fuse with squealing minisynths and rattling hand percussion. This ecstatic cacophony might sound as loud as industrial music, but it’s also as profoundly moving and archetypal as Lorca’s duende echoing through the mountains of Andalusia.
Back in April, we here at SF Weekly informed you about the existence of this new “indie label” by the name of Ouch!, which is owned — believe it or not — by McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals: a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. I, like previous Weekly writers, made this discovery when I flipped over my free copy of the Ouch! release Songs of Hurt and Healing (a handsomely packaged split CD featuring gentle, innocuous indie-pop by the groups American Analog Set and White Magic) and read the phrase “Brought to You by Tylenol Acetaminophen.”
I have already penned (for other publications) nearly 20 pages of hyperbolic praise for and obsessive overanalyzing of the psychedelic sounds created by this New York quintet. I have previously called these musicians “transhuman performance artists,” “cybershamans,” and — get this — “a sneak preview at the next evolutionary leap awaiting the human race.” Dr. Leary once dropped acid, listened to Rubber Soul, and proclaimed the Beatles to be “angels descended from heaven.” Well, my zealously millennial rants about Excepter are running a close second to those screeds. The band’s latest disc, Throne, consists solely of a 33-minute, gloriously hypnotic ritual-meditation that launches my mind into outer fucking space. What we’re dealing with here is a quark-level fusion (and ultimate transcendence) of acid rock, experimental noise, early-’80s industrial, vocal-based world music, and electronic dance music. Excepter — more than any other band on Earth save Animal Collective — has cultivated a means (via hot-wired electronics) to invoke the profoundly blissed-out, repetitive beauty endemic to great dance music by utilizing techniques typically employed by live-action, improvisational rock and jazz musicians. This music is both extremely challenging and totally gorgeous, and that’s the fundamental reason why I fail as a critic when writing about it. I’m sorry.
