The Clandestine Quartet: One for the Fossa, Two for the Wolverine (THIRTYTHREE THIRTYTHREE)

From our own, Mr. Jim McHugh:

“I’m the Dunce-Hat Mark for whom this session was pressed to wax and priced at $32 with nothin doin but a vaguely laid out b&w sleeve (no insert/innersleeve, no info; ‘digital bonus tracks’ shilled via Brandcramp/Pootify, et al) and I know it. Either way, I’ll try not to make this spiel my strap-on drool bag.

Here we have seasoned vets of the ‘we are who we are let’s let it fly’ school and I love them for it, generally and specifically — and you probably do, too. Shit, I could fully love Michael Flower and the tender electric sonority of his Shahi Baaja across a country mile if he were buried ears-deep in dirty Sus-4th chords by some Eastern Bloc Rhys Chatham-type determined to render him featureless in the name of the 5000 Electric Guitar Ideal; his excellent longtime compadre Chris Corsano knows just how to propel him(and Bill Orcutt and Paul Dunmall and other tender/electric mode-shifters) toward heavy fiery ether or plunge them into pure creamy zones. Throw those boyos in with Perennial Warlock Faves Alan and Richard Bishop and their dazzling facility and mindbent globalist aesthetic, turn slowly to face the Ouija Board, and end up, quite possibly, with something deeply, deeply perfunctory.  Given the Bishop Bros’ legendary combative streak and, particularly, Alvarius B’s inklings toward improv and sound-pallets indebted to Bobcat Goldthwait, and here we could be holding a record that, if it didn’t first bore you into abject buyer’s remorse, could actually kill you by how annoying it is. I respect that power, don’t you?

This music, tho, is great and ENORMOUS to boot, and it shows what a little composition can give you — a mere four days of it in a London studio, according to the one-sheet, spearheaded by Alan B hisself — and, SISTER, DOES IT SLAY.

First track lands like the deftest punk band ever covering Boredoms’ monolithic destroyer House Of Sun: a slow build, teeming dynamics, instrumental voices emerging melodious from the lovely murk — fluid forming concrete, and from there it rises high and travels fast. Somehow it works better than Boredoms(I could never imagined) because this is ‘live in the studio’ so there’s no looping, less static textures, zero electronic trickery: its human and joyous and humongous when it hits, and it alone makes the record worth hearing.

You can hear how AB’s legato singsong P-Bass leads all things along, and the complete uniqueness of the ensemble interaction seems based in these inverted chord-voicings: shredded melisma flags wave on warped plys of drone that flex as they affix to armatures made of melodic low-end material moving like immense precision clockwork built from huge smooth trees. Richard Bishop’s guitar is less dominant or perhaps more compressed than we’re accustomed, and its absolutely alchemical tucked amongst the telekinetic playing. 

Amazingly, tho, it’s Rick’s piano that transmogrifies the proceedings completely; on “So Long Harry Dean” he evokes Alice Coltrane’s magic not in the modern connotation forged by her harp-droning Ashram reissues, but in the way he sounds worthy of replacing McCoy Tyner, establishing deep and mournful moods thru broken block-chords to be later shattered by the horns. Here of course things are later shattered, and it’s a horn that does it — abrupt, nimbly — but not before AB’s bass engages in place of the colossal saxophone, and it feels not unlike a ravine-toned Eddie Hazel in his funereal way, marching sadly thru the bleak light of the Shahi Baaja to Corsano’s metered resolve, which shifts tectonically more toward Elvin Jones than to Rashid Ali’s skittery running-water ambiance.

The longer pieces amaze; neatly perfect are the shorter songs, squarely parts-centric; Michael Flower blooms through the goo to rule when he needs to, and altogether this thing is a billion beautiful pounds. So there you have it: DUNCE CAPS FOR ALL — RED AND BLACK AND EXTRA POINTY, PLEASE!!!”