(This feature originally appeared in the SF Weekly.)
“What I like about No-Neck Blues Band is that we are all trying to embrace all the aspects of life: the good, the evil, the light, the dark,” Dave Nuss explains via cell phone from New York. “We try to have all this stuff hanging in the balance.”
Later that day, I ring Keith Connelly, another member of the approximately 12-year-old septet known as No-Neck Blues Band (or just NNCK). With startling consistency, Connelly picks up Nuss’ line of conversation and carries it a step further.
“You can use us, our music, as a transition or as a vehicle to be in that state of mind,” Connelly says. “When people are into it, I feel like we do share some of the same experience.”
A few years back, I briefly shared “that state of mind” — hyperaware of “the good, the evil, the light, the dark” — when one of NNCK’s improvised, meditative jams, a fusion of psychedelic noise and experimental- and ethnic-flavored folk, left my speakers and transmitted from the group to me what this tightly knit outfit experienced when creating these sounds. Even more extraordinary was the synchronicity. The name of the track was “Assignment Subud,” and as it played, I actually read in Colin Wilson’s massive tome The Occult this very sentence, “This section of Gurdjieff would not be complete without some mention of Subud.” Subud is a modern spiritual practice emphasizing humanity’s attainment of vital forces through a direct link with the rhythmic flow of the universe.
Soon, I started researching all of NNCK’s song and album titles for further synchronicities and hidden meanings, and I now believe that the enigmatic members of NNCK, who are rarely interviewed and who self-release most of their records in ultralimited quantities, are leaving behind a trail of clues for fans to follow. And with NNCK dropping Qvaris, a more widely distributed release put out by the indie imprint 5RC, that trail leads straight into darkness.
“Qvaris is the densest referencing job we’ve done yet,” Connelly divulges, always careful not to tip his hand completely. “It’s referencing a sort of invented mythology,” heavily inspired by the late-19th- and early-20th-century fantasy and horror of H.P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, and Arthur Machen — authors who “attempt to describe this kind of other world beyond the veil.”
The opening piece, a brooding, almost funereal Celtic groove titled “The Doon,” alludes specifically to Lord Dunsany, who used that title to mean “The End.” So maybe the invented mythology of Qvaris begins at death (the end) and with each successive track ventures “beyond the veil” into netherworlds of squealing electric instrumentation, crying atmospherics, and agitated free-rock rhythms — sounds that are far, far removed from the pastoral ray of light that is “Assignment Subud.”
“When we listened back to these recordings,” Nuss says, “there was an aspect to it that just felt darker.”
Definitely.
Tracks such as “Qvaris Theme” and “Qvaris Theme (Loplop Hearing Qvaris)” are pure electronic creep, while the 11-minute “The Caterpillar Heart” is shattered Celtic drone, which eventually dissolves into the nervous chatter of violently bowed strings, kitchen utensil percussion, and a melancholic synthesizer.
Yet, for reasons still to be decoded, the second-to-last piece, “Lugnagall,” stands apart from this “darker” vibe. It feels almost celebratory with its sheets of wavering, Doors-flavored organ, a crisp strum of a clean electric axe, boisterous male and female voices, and propulsive rock rhythms that become sturdier as the jam progresses.
According to my research, “Lugnagall” appears in the W.B. Yeats story “The Curse of the Fires and of the Shadows” (more darkness and death), and it translates as “the stranger’s leap.” To date, this is the most poignant allusion I’ve discovered on Qvaris. It captures perfectly the experience that NNCK has quietly offered to its listeners over the past decade.
The listener, the stranger, can take that leap into NNCK’s world and follow the winding trail of clues until he possesses a core knowledge of literature and history, which will enable both listener and musician the possibility of intimately sharing one and the same experience. And that’s precisely what NNCK strives to achieve without ever forcing the issue — a tangible unity with an audience that is dedicated to really listening. As Connelly tells me, “If you choose to be there as a listener, then it’s all right there for you to sense.”
Over the past decade, Lightning Bolt — that mighty bass-and-drums duo from Providence, R.I. — cultivated a brand-new form of underground rock, a powerful fusion of free noise, pounding dance grooves, the technical precision of metal, the low-end thump of hip hop, the intricacies of prog-rock, the insanely gleeful hooks of pop, and the wild fury of hardcore. Unfortunately, Lightning Bolt’s albums — recorded as if jamming in the studio were just another gig — have lacked the intensity of the band’s ritualistic live performances, wherein Brian Chippendale (drums) and Brian Gibson (bass) sport ragged neon masks and rock out on club floors, smack dab in the middle of their rabid fans. In this respect, the pair’s new disc, Hypermagic Mountain, is no different from its predecessors. However, it is the first release to sound like a well-produced, big-time hard rock LP, as if these two finally learned that album-oriented music requires some studio wizardry beyond simply pressing the “record” button. I mean, it’s no Queen record, but Lightning Bolt’s anthem-rock qualities (blistering, reverb-soaked solos; monster riffage; and fuzzy “rawk” vocals) are much more clearly defined here, making freaky techno-metal jams like “Dead Cowboy,” “Mohawkwind in the Willows,” and “Mega Ghost” the perfect soundtracks for pumping some iron.
After 40 years of dedicating himself to crafting smart, challenging music (even if it wasn’t always listenable), John Cale now wants to be a big pop star. Exhibit A: his new disc, blackAcetate:, a bland collection of radio-friendly pop-rock influenced by the digitally programmed grooves of Dr. Dre and the peppy, anthemic indie-pop of the Dandy Warhols. Cale even recorded a couple of riff-a-licious jock jams, “Sold Motel” and “Turn the Lights On,” which he probably wrote with significant input from his new collaborator, Mickey Petralia (who previously worked with the aforementioned Warhols and Rage Against the Machine). As a former member of the Velvet Underground, pioneering minimalist composer, and precursor to the new wave, Cale (even before Eno) invented the template for the unpredictable auteur creating eccentric pop music with an avant-garde sensibility. However, he’s never been a big pop star, but rather a cult musician (whom big pop stars like David Bowie rip off), and that’s the role Cale is most comfortable playing. Aesthetically speaking, he’s too obtuse to be churning out cookie-cutter pop. So Cale, once you realize that Fall Out Boy fans aren’t going to embrace blackAcetate:, go back to being a pretentious artiste and hook up with some obscure noise freaks; you are better suited for it.
Several years back, American soil sprouted hundreds of indie groups reviving the angular, disco-punk sound of the early ’80s. During their 15 seconds of fame, groups like the Rapture and the Gossip regurgitated a handful of 20-year-old dance grooves for coke-addled indie kids while in the process adding very little aesthetic innovation to the post-punk canon. Then, just like that, they all disappeared, surrendering the hipster flag to Devendra Banhart and “freak folk.” However, several groups in the Bay Area remain defiant, including the trio Numbers, which just released a new disc titled We’re Animals. Unfortunately, defiance isn’t always the prudent move, because this is a rote collection of new wave dance-pop. The grooves are listless. The stale Gang of Four-like riffage feels as if it’s played by a guitarist cruising on autopilot. And the twee, robotic vocals of drummer Indra Dunis are painfully thin and flat. “Solid Pleasure” is the sole standout track, and that’s because I never thought any indie group would ever dare create a retro style based upon an innocuous fusion of early-’90s indie-pop: Stereolab, Tsunami, Slowdive, etc. I guess that must be the next big thing.
In 1979, the British industrial trio Nurse With Wound released its debut LP, Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella. Accompanying this 12-inch was an insert — resembling densely typed encryption cod — of the group’s favorite “out there” rock groups, free-jazz explorers, and all-out noise freaks. The “NWW List,” as it has come to be labeled, would help spawn a tiny but global network of zealous collectors who scour record stores, shelling out hundreds of dollars for rare LPs.
Over the past several years, the New York duo the USA Is a Monster — Tom Hohmann (drums, synthesizer, and vocals) and Colin Matthews (guitar and vocals) — has been developing a singular fusion of Lightning Bolt-inspired techno-metal, bong water-drenched psychedelia, anthemic prog-isms à la Rush, Native American tribal-jams, and defiant political hardcore. What’s more, Hohmann and Matthews have also found the time to follow their other respective muses. Under the moniker Elvish Presley, Hohmann heads up a face-painted cadre of misfits creating hobbit folk-rock. And with acoustic axe in hand, Matthews often spends months wandering the country as a nomadic troubadour (influenced by ’60s AM pop and the cryptic, cowpunk lyricism of the Meat Puppets). But on the 14-track Wohaw, every musical path that Hohmann and Matthews have traveled both together and as individuals merges into the USA Is a Monster’s magnum opus. I mean, this disc is really, really over-the-top, featuring a punishing sequence of jams such as “Tecumseh” — a seven-minute, multimovement war-chant tribute to the fallen American Indian leader that also contains manic sections of synth-squealing, mosh-pit thrash. But this release also boasts a quiet, surreal suite of campfire field recordings, mystical nature-poetry, and stoned psych-folk. If sprawling, two-hour progressive-rock statements are your bag, check out the truly epic fucker that is Wohaw.
