CCCP - Collapse
(self-released)
Those crazy youngsters. But such is the way of music. CCCP is named after the quartet's first initials, but they play up the Soviet associations in all due manner, from the great CD art to various black and white pictures that suggest some wonderfully grim times down on the old collective farm back in 1926.
That said, musically anyone expecting the Internationale will be left alas fretting. Compiled from a series of improvisational get-togethers that were then used and abused by member Christopher—the spirit of Teo Macero lives on, even though he is not dead—Collapse plants itself somewhere between scraping drone meditations and noise madness, merrily crossing the lines as desired. There's enough murk for Dead C fans at the very least—"1981, My First Roll of Film, From the Roof" sounds like it was simultaneously recorded in a basement and across a wooded valley. The various members draw on something from DJ experience to participation in a Middle Eastern music ensemble at William and Mary college, where they all met, and while the end result doesn't quite suggest that total range, it does make some bemusingly creeped out results. "Signing While Sinking" aims for a restrained melancholia that suggests the title quite well—call it the less structured distant relative of the Cure's "The Drowning Man"—while "Touch It as It Spins" blends extended moans from both vocalists and piano (and more) to entrancing effect.
Still, this is a debut album and sounds it, in that there is some fine and inspired moments, but not as yet a true sense of something really special. The ambition is audible, happily, and there are enough young bands soon to clutter up the world who doubtless think that rock began with Julian Casablancas' buttcheeks. But a fair amount of the songs are mostly chaos for the sake of chaos, and this in and of itself isn't really striking or surprising anymore. Hearing the keyboard freakouts on the title track backed by random calls and wails is almost comfort food at this point instead of a rebellion against the system, and other similar moments are similarly 'eh okay.' Where the group should go next is up to them, though there's enough going on that some sort of focus can yet produce wonders. Credit them already for a good line in song titles, though—thus "The Artists' Interactions Most Assuredly Emanate from the Spirit Within."
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