Henry Flynt and the Insurrections - I Don't Wanna
(Locust)
Until recent years, the recordings of Henry Flynt were largely unavailable. But, thanks to Recorded and Locust (among others), the work of this rustic minimalist has been opened to the ears of a whole new listening generation. Much of the work with which Flynt has made his name is the product of his own strains of ethnic American music, that is, an amalgam of folk, country, and bluegrass played through a minimalist, sometimes psychedelic haze. I Don't Wanna offers a look at Flynt's take on another of the era's representative musics, protest rock.
The traditional image of the protest rock of the 1960s is one of acoustic guitars, long hair, and sharp-tongued ballads. Flynt, however, takes a different route, one far from his usual musical paths: electric rock. I Don't Wanna features Flynt with the Insurrectionists, playing guitar alongside sculptor Walter De Maria on drums, Art Murphy on keyboards, and Paul Breslin on drums. Rock or not, I Don't Wanna isn't completely removed from the usual spectrum of Flynt's music; at times, his guitar lines are reminiscent of fragments of his more avant garde work, and the nasal twang of Flynt's voice is far more backwoods than downtown. Stripped-down arrangements, often heavy on "solos" in which Flynt simply continues a jangly riff, make up much of the disc, and the music has a sloppiness that's part endearing garage exuberance and part awkward amateurism, but the messiness of some of Flynt's playing and his tendencies to slip into moments of minimalist chug sometimes result in some of the disc's best bits. To an extent, much of the music on I Don't Wanna is unremarkable; though "Jumping" is an excellent slab of psychedelic skronk, the majority of the disc's tracks are less impressive. The group's outsider stance bodes well on the more aggressive "Sky Turned Red," but the slower numbers seem to stumble along a times.
Whether or not I Don't Wanna would be finding the light of day were Flynt not involved is a question that can't be conclusively answered, though it seems safe to posit that only the most resourceful and determined collectors of obscure 60s rock might have found great appeal in these recordings. There's importance, though, in this album's role as an audio signpost of Flynt's development as a musician and political thinker, and this disc is invaluable in a more biographical sense.
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