Jackie-O Motherfucker - The Magick Fire Music
(Ecstatic Peace!)
After the triumphant release of 2000's Fig. 5, the Portland, Oregon collective of artists known as Jackie-O Motherfucker make a very welcome return with the offering of not one, but two extended genre-busting workouts. Liberation is out now on Road Cone, the usual home on compact disc for the band, and is another truly stellar satchel full of huzzing charms, brimming with their patented hayrides into underground jazz, Appalachian improv, and, in a mild twist of plot, a couple of I'll-be-doggone songs. The otherwise disparate sound forms under the guidance of JOMF intimately hold hands and share a milkshake like any good kissing cousins should. Preceding that release by mere weeks is the limited The Magick Fire Music, on Thurston Moore's own Ecstatic Peace! imprint. I'll leave another equally enamored fakejazz cohort to wax lovingly over the very wonderful Liberation CD, for the sheer bulk of sounds and the subtle differences between both albums warrant separate slatherings, and thus I can focus on the inebriating alter-universe Jackie-O Motherfucker weaves across The Magick Fire Music's two slabs of vinyl.
Crudely packaged in a simple white sleeve with a sticker unceremoniously announcing the voodoo hiding within, The Magick Fire Music is further adorned with duct tape along the length of the opening, in an almost implied attempt to keep the goods securely locked in using the most resourceful means possible. Resourcefulness is at the core of JOMF, but in a different sort of manner than the usual making-do with the few implements readily available. JOMF are made up of 12 musicians running amok over various guitars, saxophones, Jews harps, turntables, banjos and pump organs... to give just a mere cross-section of their arsenal. But JOMF never clutter the air with sonic goo just because they can; they use subtle interplay to dictate the mood and the direction, with feet planted in both camps of 60's jazz and Folkways regional music... American and Americana. The Magick Fire Music slowly oozes with an immersion of those predominant perspectives, but setting this double platter apart is the effortless cross-pollinating with other textures under a languid liquidity of movement. Resourcefully dipping into a variety of spices with an eye on equal dispersion, the degree of restraint for the greater meal plan serves up a fabulously complex yet accommodating dish the whole commune can dine on.
Side 1 hits some oddly psychedelic grooves in which some of the more peripheral displays of the JOMF sound find a nice lock. "Extension" saunters into the ether with a minimal drum machine pulse padding some interweaving field recordings and hushed vocal samples, only to find some Papa M-type guitar melancholy to set the wind steadily beneath the sails; "Bone Saw" finds a Jew's harp twanging across a quietly plodding rhythm, filtering in some turntable scratching from the room next door. Side 2 hits a majestic and cinematic soundwash with some high-lonesome guitar caressing. "The Cage" swoons with placid Southwestern desert guitar riffs, as if Giant Sand entered the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks and picked up the late night second set for the evening. It's magnificently beautiful. "2nd Ave 2 AM" keeps near the moody pace but in a loose and fractured structure, like early ESP-Records icons The Godz and Holy Modal Rounders taking codeine, summoning Ayler once or twice, and lifting phrases from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Building it all into a shimmering crescendo keeps the brain chemicals flowing nicely. Over the course of sides 3 & 4, JOMF clock in with some more glacially building psychedelic improvisations ("Jugband 2000," "Lost Stone"), but hit some nice winsome structure with more David Pajo-esque guitar based songs like "Quaker" and "Black Squirrels"--the latter degenerating into some good old rock feedback meltdown. By the end you realize you've hit multiple points along the music map, and you may have been able to chart your travels if the map hadn't been discarded at the last truckstop. But that's part of hitting the road with Jackie-O Motherfucker. The serene vistas and barren landscape viewed through The Magick Fire Music's lens is a vibrant journey along remote old highways, instinct leading the way. Get them while you can; The Magick Fire Music is a limited pressing of 400.
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