Rollerball - Behind the Barber
(Silber)
A romantic, dreamy Bernard Hermann-esque, Taxi Driver-vibe wafts through "Do the Slim Jim," the opening track on this Portland, Oregon collective's tenth album and second for this wonderful North Carolina-based indie. There's also a taste of Bollywood added to the proceedings with some random sitar flourishes (in keeping with the band's "all-for-one-and-one-for-all" attitude, all instrumentation is uncredited, although there are nearly a dozen collaborators listed alongside the core quintet). The siesta continues on the lengthy "Slits Arandas," which, after 90 seconds of introductory fodder, transforms into a smooth, sexy, Gato Barbieri-led jazz session with Amanda Mason Wiles' sax melody lifted straight off his Last Tango In Paris soundtrack. Before long, Gilles (no surnames, thank you) starts hitting things like bongos, shakers, sharp metal objects, saws and the more traditional drumkit, and S DeLeon S (I swear I'm not making these names up, folks!) starts blowing sweet nothings through her (his?) clarinets and trumpets and by the time samplers, keyboards and slide whistles join the party, the resulting bossa nova cha-cha-cha sounds like Olivia Tremor Control (OTC) recording a Santana tribute album.
Unfortunately, the band doesn't know when they've got a good thing going, so they decide NOT to leave well-enough alone, and about half-way through this quarter-hour monstrosity (which is about too long by half), the track is overrun by Wiles' annoying, skronking sax solos and additional brain damage featuring brass deconstruction by Jef Brown of fellow Portland weirdoes, Jackie O Motherfucker that sounds like a gaggle of geese with the whooping cough. Talk about a buzzkill!
A word of caution before "Autotelic" begins: turn down the volume or Mini Wagonwheel's harmonic bass will shatter your speakers and turn your woofers into tweeters. Besides, you won't be missing much, as this sonic horn collage of sax, trumpet and clarinet is more experimental than melodic, as is "Quiela (Ovo Sub)," a collection of electronic noodlings and samplings which could easily be "Volume 2" of OTC's alter-ego, Black Swan Network's The Late Music. Mini's bass is put to good use, however, on the heavy reggae of "Starling," the "Aleph Dub" remix of a track from last year's Real Hair (their Silber debut), and I also dug the groovy, loungey cocktail jazz of "Burning Light (Nudge Rub)."
I should mention in passing that I'm generally not a fan of remix albums and that most of this release was assembled by a couple of guys named Surfactant Bleed and Muddmakr. Despite their mostly destructive influences, there are a few tracks worth investigating, including "Chi Town Cub," another surreal sound collage with Mae Starr's disembodied vocals hovering over lots of clanging, backwards electronic loops and assorted "what the fuck was that's." You'll also enjoy her scat singing, Wagonwheel's heavy, driving Lemmyesque bass and Gilles' hyperactive backbeat as they propel "King Ben D" through your synapses and gosh darnit if I wasn't "getting' jiggy widdit" inspite of myself! It's one of the album's highlights and too mercilessly short. Finally, the tribal, jungle dub rhythms of "Chicalote" will have you rolling (doobies) in the aisles, although it will no doubt be best appreciated by fans of Lee "Scratch" Perry. Another challenging, multi-genre, homebrew gumbo from one of Portland's finest avant pranksters.
|
