Gravitar interview with Geoff Walker and Eric Cook

Pillaloo è vivo e se sonnecchia lo fa come l'alligatore prima che azzanni la preda. (Mi ricordo che in un documentario si vedeva questo alligatore che sbucava fuori dall'acqua e si scagliava contro una scimmia che passeggiava lì sulla riva, forse in villeggiatura. Credendo che quei luridi schizzi di fango e bava avessero a che vedere con uno dei giochi organizzati da quel mattacchione dell'animatore del villaggio, la scimmia faceva un simpatico zompo all'indietro, quasi ridacchiando. Non troppo rapida però perché l'alligatore intanto s'era portato via mano e parte dell'avambraccio destro, così che la scimmia si guardava penzolare quel che restava di ossa legamenti nervi sanguinolenti). Tutto questo per dire anche che prendo la palla al balzo per proporre in versione integrale l'intervista fatta qualche mese fa a Eric Cook e Geoff Walker dei Gravitar, gruppo che già a inizio anni '90 anticipava certe tendenze del noise attuale sia a livello musicale (uso sfrenato di pedali/effetti, virate psych/free) che a livello estetico (formati vari a latere della loro discografia ufficiale/plurime collaborazioni ecc.). Anche se con meno gloria basta vedere quel che han combinato i due dopo lo scioglimento del gruppo: Geoff perso in mille cose e Eric con la sua carriera solista di musicista elettronico. Di tutto questo si è parlato nel numero di luglio-agosto di "Blow Up" ma è Pillaloo a beccarsi la versione totalmente integrale e uncut di un'intervista che è utile non solo per conoscere aspetti sconosciuti della musica e della storia dei Gravitar, ma che ci permette di gettare un occhio proprio sullo stato dell'arte che porterà dieci anni dopo a trovare un altro gruppo del Michigan, i Wolf Eyes, nientemeno che su Sub Pop. E da allora di cose nella musica brutta ne sono successe già tante...
Il testo è rimasto così com'è nato e si è sviluppato, senza troppe pippe. E anche questa è in inglese, sì.

Why Gravitar as band name?

Geoff: Gravitar was Harold's idea. Eric and I liked it because it evoked feelings of weight and thickness, and it sounded super-hero-esque. We (at least Eric and I didn't, I don't know now if Harold didn't) didn't know at the time about the Atari video game. Oh well. We had several other names before Gravitar, but decided to stick with the one we played our first show as, so as to not have to begin promoting a new name....

How did you meet each others?

Geoff: Harold and Eric had played together with John D'Agostini in a band called Stinkeye in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. John and Harold were in college and met Eric when he played drums for Morbid Fear, with a guy I went to High School with (in the great north, 8 hours north of Detroit by car, very remote). Anyway, they all played together and kept it up when Harold moved to Ann Arbor and John to Dearborn. Harold used to come into Schoolkids records, where I worked in Ann Arbor, which was a legendary Midwestern record store. We had the same taste in records, so he asked if I played music. When I said yes, he invited me to his house, where
Eric came and picked us up, and we drove to John's. Eric lived in East Lansing at the time, so he drove an hour to meet us and then an hour to get to John's. He was very dedicated.
Anyway, I met them because I was into weird records and so was Harold.

I'm curious to know your opinion about Wolf Eyes and related projects and, in general, about the michiganoise scene. Why right from that state we've had so many noise bands/projects? What are the reasons in your opinion? From Universal Indians to the latest generations of musicians...

Eric: Wolf Eyes are great, though I think their records pale somewhat in comparison to the experience of their live shows (but that's the case with a lot of noise acts, really). As far as the larger Michigan noise scene goes... I don't really know what's going on these days. I really checked out of being involved with the music scene when I came back to grad school in 2003, and a lot has changed since then. I think I've played two shows and been to maybe 3 others in that whole time. But I run into John Olson and Aaron Dilloway around town now and then, and email with the Timestereo guys some. I can't speak for them, or about the other people in that scene that I don't know personally, but I think a large part of the reason that they've all done so well is their work ethic. All those guys are freakin' machines -- just churning out release after release, band after band, tour after tour. I don't know how they've had the stamina to keep it up all these years. And they have been doing it for *years*. I met all those guys originally in the early 90s, and they were all doing music/noise/art then.. so to still be cranking it out some 15+ years later, that's impressive.

The Nicodemus split was one of your weirdest releases on vynil...

Ah yeah, the Nicodemus split. I think that is probably my least favorite Gravitar release, or at least it is the one that I was least involved with and least invested in. I think I've listened to it twice since it came out. Geoff took the lead on that one. I understand what he was shooting for, and certainly his motivation for wanting to do something with Nicodemus (who was quite a character, and a pretty big personal influence on Geoff for a while then). But I don't think it came together, sonically or in terms of direction and approach.

I've listened to the collaboration of Geoff with Blue Sabbath Black Cheer and it's great. It's weird that someone some years ago wrote that Gravitar were influenced also by Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer...
Eric: I haven't heard that one. I've only been marginally in touch the past few years, after he moved to San Francisco and I started back at grad school. But yeah, Sabbath was of course a big influence on all of us, all sorts of heavy guitar psych stuff like Blue Cheer... We even had a song on the "Brief history of.." tape/CDR called 'Blue Sabbath' (small joke there, the song wasn't quite heavy enough to be 'black', so it was just blue..)

It would be good if you've some anecdotes to share with us...

Eric: Hm... I've been thinking about anecdotes and stories, but it is a little hard for me to guess what would be most interesting or useful for you. Do you want stories about how the band was formed, how various records came about, how things developed over time, or..? If you frame it a bit more, I can be more detailed and on point...

Rehearsal spots 1993-1994:
We used to have a rehearsal room in an office building in downtown Ann Arbor, which we shared with another band called the Zug Island Quartet (named after a Detroit area industrial zone). We could only practice between 11 pm and 5 am. We would do these marathon latenight sessions, and then I would drive the hour home to East Lansing where I was living at the time, with the sun coming up...

The building was strangely on the down and out -- it did have a few operating businesses in it (and downtown ann arbor is fairly upscale overall), but there would be homeless guys asleep in the elevator when we hauled our equipment in at night, etc. Things got stranger and sketchier after a while; John Westerman, the guy from Zug Island who paid the rent on the room took our collective monthly payment to the property management company that he had been dealing with. The woman he had been dealing with there was gone (fired? left? it was unclear), and they informed him that they *weren't* in fact the owners or managers of the building. What was that all about? Did they lose possession of it somehow, or had we been paying rent to the wrong person while effectively squatting illegally in the building? We never found out, but we just stopped paying rent, and no one came asking why were there.. So I suppose at that point we went from effectively squatting to definitely squatting.

The building kept going further downhill over the next few months, ceiling tiles falling down, just generally a sense of disrepair kicking. More homeless guys in the building. We heard stories of one of the other office rooms being broken into, so Westerman took it on himself to reinforce our door with extra locks and plywood (a good job too). Then one day, we came it, and saw that someone had kicked a man-sized hole in the wall thru the drywall next to one of the door, and looted it. Needless to say, it was clear that our door reinforcement wasn't going to do the trick in response to that. Time was up, and it was clear that we need to find better practice space.

The next spot was in a self-storage facility in Westland, a suburb outside of Detroit. I can't remember how we found the spot, there weren't any other bands in there, and none of us lived near Westland. I do remember that it was convenient to get to from the highway, so maybe that was a factor. In any case, here we were again in practice spot that wasn't, really. These were little 10x10 rooms, made of corrugated steel, with us running a powercord out the door and plugging into some industrial outlet around the corner from our building with 2 or three extension cords. I'm not sure exactly I can convey what kind of ear damage that induced.. we used to rehearse *loud*. Turn up any of the gravitar CDs as loud as your stereo will go, and then put it all in a room entirely made of metal. There would be this high pitched shimmer that would hang in the air as the walls and doors vibrated and shook.

This ended after about 6 months. Again, we were paying rent, but sneaking in to do rehearsals only after business hours, here from about 9 pm to midnight. One day Harold drove out to play guitar by himself during the day.. not sure why. The actual owner of the facility was unfortunately on site, and came flying into the room, red-faced and apoplectic, asking Harold what he thought he was doing. "I thought you were using power tools in this unit!" When Harold recounted the story, I got the impression that power tools would have been marginally better than a guitar, amps and chains of pedals, but not by much. In any case, that was that for Secured Self Storage. We were without a rehearsal spot for a few months then, until Mike Walker moved to Ann Arbor and then joined the band. But that's another story.

Let me know if you're agree with who says that "Now the Road of Knives" is your best album.

Eric: Best? That's hard to say. It's a good album, and definitely the most studio intensive, which is something I was really interested in pursuing at the time. It is hard for me to say, to get far enough removed from the process and evaluate it as a standalone object.

Knives was early on in the post-Harold period, and so the more studio-intensive approach was both a result of wanting to make a clear and distinct break from the early records, as well as partly out of necessity, since we were still redeveloping ourselves as a live band with the new lineup. Warren Defever's influence was really helpful on that one as well, since he served more as a producer than we had had previously - John D'Agostini was a stalwart friend and engineer throughout the life of Gravitar, but he definitely took a more hands off approach with us in terms of suggesting what to include and what to exclude, and how we should approach the material and each record. He was a facilitator, rather than a producer, if you see my distinction.

My favorite overall is probably a toss up between "you must first learn to draw the real" and "Edifier". I think "draw the real" is the tightest and most focused of the records, which sometimes suffered from meandering a bit longer than they need too, with the occasional dud track included for reasons that had more to do with individual egos than the ultimate good of each album. But Edifier has some of my favorite performances of the Geoff/Mike/Eric lineup, and probably caught us near the top of our time playing together (as well as being a nice sounding record!)

Geoff, you've been involved in may ways into the noise scene, so tell me something about your current and past projects.

Side projects include:

Basketcase.
This was with John Olson of Wolf Eyes before he was in Wolf Eyes and Lisa Colwell. We were a multi-instrumental and vocal trio that was part of the Michigan Progressive movement in the late 20th century. The three of us set up many shows for traveling acts from around the country and world, including Mainliner, No Neck Blues Band, Rubber O Cement, and many more. One of our bands usually played the shows.

El Bombastico. This was with John D'Agostini and me who is Gravitar's usual engineer - we made lots of kinds of music using samples and instruments. John
has self-released some of our material. A cassette recently came out on What We Do Is Secret.

Magnetic Lucifer. This is me by myself. I use all manner of noise and range from psychedelic noise a la Masonna to twisted covers of Dolly Parton and Lee Hazelwood.

I've recently sat in with Awesome Color when they opened for Sonic Youth at the Fillmore in San Francisco and with Dinosaur Jr in Portland, Oregon.

Where do you live now and how did you get in touch with the guys of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer?

Geoff: I live in Washington State, not far from Portland. BSBC (Blue Sabbath Black Cheer) is in Seattle, about 3 hours north. I met Stan Reed at the Nurse With Wound show he played in San Francisco, just before I moved to Washington. Funny that I met him there because he
and Wm. had been in BSBC together for a while already. BSBC is named after a Gravitar song, Blue Sabbath, so it does make sense for me to play with them. I've
known Wm. for 13 years now. Gravitar did a west coast tour with his old band Tekachi in 1995. In 1996 Wm. came to Michigan and joined Gravitar for a couple shows. We were supporting Zeni Geva for their Michigan dates. Wm. and ZG and Bambi Nonymous (ZG's
tour manager, from Tragic Mulatto, Mudwimmin) all stayed at my house in Hamtramck, which is a small town entirely surrounded by Detroit. We had a grand time.

I like playing with BSBC - I've played with lots of people and bands over the years, and BSBC is one of very few that consistently works well - we just fucking nail it every time.

Other projects?

Most recently, I'm playing in Spider Tombs with Mark Howe, aka Loopletcher, aka ImLooLoo
We make a dynamic racket. He provides the lows and I make the highs, and we creak and squeak and rumble and explode.

Jesus, there are lots of other side projects, like the Transitional Phase cd with the crew from Subarachnoid Space, Flue and Outerdrive. Outerdrive were a bunch of Michigan guys I moved to Colorado with for a short period of time, centering around bassist extraordinaire and recordist Scott Hill. Psychedelic rock like psychedelic freak rock was meant to be. Scott still lives there and records as The Left Channel. We released two cds - one a super limited cdr and one on the Elsie and Jack Marino imprint

John Olson and I played together as Melted Shop Vac and have at least one release on American Tapes, though it's hard to keep up with all the stuff John has released with me on it. For instance, I haven't even seen the 19cdr box set that came out on American tapes last year and Basketcase apparently makes up a whole cd.

To be honest, I haven't kept up too much on what's been going on in the Michigan noise scene. I'm more interested in what's going on here in the Pacific Northwest

What about the new generations of noise musicians? Why Michigan as one of the cradles of this kind of music?

Geoff: The new generations are like new generations of anything - there's lots that's great and creative and lots that's just crap - I mean, any movement has good and bad. Michigan is a great place for loud music and noise because it's one way people can feel like they are empowered in an otherwise bleak existence. While the landscape is beautiful, the economy is terrible, and during the winter it is easy to stay inside with your records and amplifiers and not go out into the cold. Turning up your speakers so loud that your clothes flutter in the air waves and playing at
full volume just plain feels great. When you connect with your band-mates in that space it's unlike any other kind of communication. There were times with Gravitar that I felt as though energy was solid in the air and all I had to do was think of what I was going to do next and Mike and Eric knew and we neither led nor followed but pushed forward together in an
unparalleled assault.

Any anecdotes about the band on the stage...

Geoff: There was a time at the Green Room in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where the sound man measured us at 116 db while we were tuning up, before he turned on the PA system. We were massive that night. We cleared the audience out completely. I thought they'd left because they didn't like it, but when we went out front into the night air Jay Heikes (who did the cover art for Now The Road Of Knives) said "That was great!" "You didn't even hear it - you left, " I said. He replied "No! we were all out here listening! It was way too loud in there, we had to come out...but you sounded great."

What about the improvisation in your music?

Geoff: I think that our improv was equal parts free jazz, psych rock, garage, and funk, like Funkadelic (also from Detroit) on Alice in my fantasies, from Standing on the verge of getting it on

What was the role of John D'Agostini in the band's history?

Geoff: I cannot stress enough the importance of John D'Agostini. He was an original member of Gravitar, before we chose the name. He played bass. He continued with us as our engineer and friend, and we continued without a bass. No bass on any recordings. just guitars with whammy pedals.

Why the band disbanded at least?

Geoff: Eric decided not to continue, and there were no other drummers. He is the best drummer I ever played with. But more than that, at that point, to me, Gravitar was a family and it wouldn't have been Gravitar without him.

Back to the first records...

Geoff: There weren't any albums before Chinga, just the 7" and some tape appearances... The first single was our first real release - we'd been on a cassette comp before, but this was vinyl! and exciting. Computers were a lot slower then. working on cover art and mixing took lots of time, and was often sort of hit or miss....

We (or at least I was) were listening to lots of Japanese music, lots of garage punk, lots of american heavy music, lots of jazz like Sonny Sharrock's Ask the Ages.

We recorded both of our first two albums at Electric Landlandy studios with John D'Agostini at the helm. Mike played on one song on the second disc, joining full time shortly after it was recorded. We would go to John's studio and stay for two days at a time, playing, mixing, and hanging out. There was a real joy and excitement in the process.

Then I'd like to know something more and how you were able to write a fucking free noise album like "Now the Road of Knives". And if you think it's your best one or so. Looks like the textures of the songs exploded...

It was a difficult time in that we had to let Harold go at the end of '95, and had to re-organize our sound. That was real hard because his playing was so integral to Gravitar. He had a way of playing on and off time at the same time that I still haven't heard anywhere else. Eric has a collection of songs that really showcase Harold that have yet to be released. Maybe some Italian label would be interested in them.....It was a major challenge for me and Mike to cover the guitar responsibilities, but it ultimately worked out well for us. Mike is a great rhythm
player, and together we were able to carve out a lot of sonic space. I grew up playing bass, so my guitar playing is very rhythmic as well. The fact that we're brothers made it easy to communicate and trade off low and high parts, using whammy pedals to create octave up, and octave down crunch rhythms, squealing leads, and the all out sonic mayhem that rides over the top of some of the songs on that album. We used a lot of pedals. Back then there weren't nearly as many boutique brands, and we didn't have all the old classics - we used lots of digitech pedals. Nowadays in the noise scene people scoff at digitech and Line 6 when they see them in someone's gear, which I think is stupid. Unless you make your own pedals you bought them, and just because one person buys something from a smaller weirder company doesn't make them cooler than the person who only has things they can get from a chain store. It's what the person does with those pedals that counts, and we made some pretty wild sounds with those mainstream machines.

Anyway, though it was at first challenging to work without Harold, the time around and just after that album became our most creative. We became stronger and our vision clearer. Our improvising improved, as did our songwriting. We recorded tracks with D'Agostini, and with Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive, Princess Dragon Mom, etc) and took what we felt were the best of both and mashed them together.

And here the improvisation comes...

Geoff: Our songwriting process was based on our improvisation. We would take a riff that someone had come up with, improvise on it until something clicked, repeat that, and then make that into the theme or jumping-off point.

It all seemed very easy and natural once we ironed out the guitar issues. Mike and I both had been doing vocals and horns. With him on guitar full time and me playing horns, vocals, and
guitar it really just took off. Listen to URR on "You Must First Learn To Draw The Real" - that song pretty much encapsulates the experience for me. I remember recording it in the basement of 328 John st in Ann Arbor - there was palpable electricity in the air when we left the 'jumping-off' point - a song called Uncle Rick that we were playing a lot then - and it roared
into its new and fuller self, URR (Uncle Ricks Revenge). A new song out of an old one - it remains my personal favorite of our tracks.

I think you're right in saying the textures of our songs exploded. It was as if we kept pushing each other to get bigger within an already bulging framework. There was a constant musical challenge, but also constant support. Playing with Gravitar at that time was one of the best things that's happened in my life. "You Must First Learn To Draw the Real" was originally intended to be a 3 song 10 inch or 12 inch. It was recorded on 4 tracks in the basement, re-mixed in the living room in Hamtramck, mastered and tweaked by Eric and John.

"Freedom..." was a collection of outtakes. Not second tier material, just things we didn't have room for on the albums. I love that record. It was Wm. Rage's idea, from Enterruption. I believe I talked about him before in relation to the Zeni Geva stories...

"Edifier" was recorded with Geoff Streadwick, who was one of Mike's best friends, and tragically died in a carbon monoxide poisoning accident before we finished the record. We were in a really strong place musically and were branching out in different directions that indicate where we might have gone if Eric hadn't decided to give up the drums.

Spires Interview With Taralie Paterson

recupero qui un'intervista via e.mail fatta il marzo scorso a Taralie Paterson in occasione del disco nuovo delle Spires. Intervista che per un motivo e per un altro non mi è stato possibile pubblicare da nessuna parte. Mi pesa troppo il culo ora a tradurre e quindi ve la leggete in inglese cari i miei global citizens...

Spires That In Sunset Rise. A mysterious expression.

well spires that in the sunset rise came to kathleen through a translation of "flowers of evil" by baudelaire, I think it provoked an exciting image and expressed the energy of our music, its not easy finding a band name! and also the band name in itself isn't easy kinda like our music,

witchcraft, occultism, satanism.

well the witch tag doesn't bother me so much, especially these days I am meeting all sorts of people who consider themselves witches and I think the label witch is getting a new and better meaning. to be a witch for me is to see the depth and magic in things, everyday things, that the western linear world has deadened. satanism, I don't know, the devil-god/goodness whatever they are the same thing, coming from the same source the eternal........we are not devil worshippers by any degree, we are pagans really. I am so glad that our music helped you with the spirits, that is exactly what we are doing, i think. recently we went camping the three of us in the band, and we were in the real woods, pitch darkness except our fire, and we thought we would play some of our music.......well we tried and basically we scared the shit out of ourselves, which was great, i think we ended up putting our detuned instruments down, and just using our voices. Anyways, I realized in retrospect that what we have been doing is bringing this intense energy of the dark woods to the city, and trying to actually play that kind of music in the woods was tooo much. the woods already do it for you. but in the city, i always find our music beautiful and balancing. I see beauty in the darkness not the devil or anti beauty themes. its like death, has got a really bad rap because of all the fear and pain, but really death is amazingly beautiful and it gives life magic and depth,

Curse The Traced Bird.

the title came from a song lyric, which is oddly how we named all of our albums thus far......for me the lyric speaks directly of the spires ethos: which is don't do whats been done! and especially don't pin down something like music/or a bird which is the symbol of freedom and expression. that's not to say I don't love traditional musics, that just hasn't been for us I guess.

Sun City Girls, Comus, Harry Partch, the Others

well the band changed, Tracy is no longer playing, and also Me and Kathy moved to Madison, and with Georgia still in Chicago she hasn't been able to play as much. These songs were written with me and Kathy as the core and Georgia added on later. The albums prior it was random who wrote what songs and who played what, this album isn't quite as random....I also think not having drums is a big deal in forming the music, and this album has no obvious drums, some minor percussion thats all. We are influenced by those artists you mentioned, among others so it would make sense that we have those sounds in our music. I think you are right, i think it is a bit more centered on atmosphere, the last album it was like we were trying so many different ideas, they each got played out, but this one seems a bit more centered....

Kathleen Bird, Tar Pet

well this is a good question, Kathleen does have some new songs, as do I whether or not we sit our butts down and get it all going is still a question......we've used some of our solo stuff for group work.

Classic question

well me and kathleen met in highschool on the cross country team.....and Tracy (who is my sister) met Georgia in the city concert band, and I met Georgia through her.....its been a long story of friendship and music. All starting probably 17 or more years ago...

How would you define your music?

thats your job! ha ha......music of the dark wood in the city, using the void as a canvas for inspiration, music expressing something lost and yet something thats never been found before, music of light/death/earth, music that draws you in and then makes you chase it around......

Chicago, folk scene

well the Albini scene and all that I've never paid much attention to especially the tortoise part-I always rather loathed tortoise, there is a lot a lot lot more going on in chicago than that stuff, music that is way more interesting over the past ten years that I've been hangin around great groups have been: Metalux, the Flying Luttenbachers, Plastic crimewave sound, the coughs, panicsville, Lichens(who is still around and is very much in our genre), Bird show, Dream Weapon, number none, and theres tons more really. Chicago noise/no wave/experimental stuff i guess you could call it was a part of my beginnings not folk so much. the whole folk thing was a coincidence, the only bands i was listening to when we started out doing our thing was tower recordings, jandek, and like old folkies from the sixties: Skip Spence, Melanie, Nick Drake....I think the folk thing for me came out of a natural need for balance, because at the time I was drumming and also playing saxophone in two different groups that were like the noise/no wave/psych freak out stuff and I would come home at night and record an intimate acoustic solo Tar Pet thing that would sound so good in comparison to what was being played around me, I really had no idea there was a folk scene happening. I didn't record Tar Pet with any hope of even really releasing it or sharing it ever. It is interesting you mention Philadelphia, because this past year we've spent more time in Philadelphia recording with Greg Weeks at his Hexham Head studios, and he is integral to that whole folk scene there so we have been introduced to what a lot of those people are doing and its great but yeah you are right its a lot different than chicago. But its also a lot different than spires stuff too, I think you can tell than spires is born out of the more experimental stuff than the folk stuff. Really spires isn't folky at all......is it? I guess it is in a weird way, I just became very attracted to acoustic instruments and their broader range of interesting sounds....

write music

sometimes we improvise together, sometimes somebody has an idea, sometimes we agonize over the course of weeks how a song goes, and sometimes we get it right from the beginning, its a lot of recording and listening thats for sure, and a lot of editing, a lot of songs don't make it...

Plastic Steve Crimewave Krakow

Steve Krakow is probably the reason I moved to Chicago, we met in the college dorms at U of Illinois back in like 92.....he was the man who let me crash on his couch so I could get my shit together to move to chicago. We have collaborated before, I drummed in his super freak out psych acid rock band "the Unshown"...back in like 00-01, I would consider collaborating with him again, he is busy though and now we don't live in the same city. Is Steve crazy? well in a way steve is one of the most grounded people I've ever met, I would not use the word crazy. He definitely knows what he wants and it just so happens that we agree a lot on what excites us musically so we have a great friendship, we've been through a lot, he gave me my first tab of acid.....ha ha

instruments

the new album doesn't use any new instruments actually.....what is new is the use of the loop sampler/ line 6......which is like an instrument. we used the piano on the first album, for the epic song "tampico". i love piano. its not very convenient though....

world

I love world music, probably I listen to world sounds at least half the time, traditional asian music is among my favorites, african, eastern european,

Will you return in Italy?

I hope so!

God bless you.

well thank you!

Blue Sabbath Black Fiji - The Night Hawk (Dokuro, 2008)

Qualcuno di voi si ricorda di Libythth? No, eh? Maledizione. Allora un piccolo ripasso: quando ero giovane – vado per i 30, sapete… – Libythth era un mio eroe e un mio amico di penna (digitale, si intende): pubblicò un paio di cd, che poi erano cdr ma all’epoca ci si vergognava a dirlo, per una delle mie etichette preferite in ambito elettronico o presunto tale, la Phthalo, la stessa che aveva pubblicato Massaccesi e il primo disco di Daedelus (quando ancora non si era dato al gay-hop). Era il 2000, 2001, e il buon Libythth partoriva un paio di dischi dai titoli assurdi e dai suoni pure, del genere drum machine imbufalita e musichette giocattolo a cascata, roba che oltre che scema era pure tutta di corsa, tutta a rotta di collo, e per giunta tutta completamente analogica (anzi, i pad della drum machine erano suonati dal vivo, mica programmati!): un casino, ecco.

Perché parlo di Libythth, quindi? Perché appena infilato nella piastra questo nastro dei Blue Sabbath Black Fiji ed è partita Ouhouh, mi è tornato in mente lui. Stesso guazzabuglio circense, stessi schiamazzi, stesso invasamento, persino stesso titolo stupido. Il tutto in chiave leggermente più free-form, se così si può dire, ma insomma, il termine di paragone non è propriamente un esempio di linearità. Non conosco molto altro di questo duo che, perdipiù, non ho nemmeno ben capito se al momento risieda a Parigi o a Glasgow, ma quella contenuta in “The Night Hawk” è una musica molto ritmica, una specie di (ehm…) weird electro che se proprio vogliamo trovare anime affini nel panorama merdifero attuale rimanda a nomi del tipo Dreamcatcher, Unicorn Hard-On & co. Il rumore c’è, ci mancherebbe, ma è un rumore che interviene perché non può farne altrimenti visto l’impiastro di beat, synth trogloditi ed effettini sci-fi che ne è alla fonte. La realtà è che è musica allegra, saltellante, spiritosa, e ovviamente anche storta, figuriamoci. A volte assomiglia a una balzana forma di micromusic irrancidita. A volte le chitarre (ah sì, perché dopotutto questa è musica per chitarre, anche se non sembra) paiono Snakefinger che dà lezione ai ragazzini dall’Aldilà Residentsiano ove presumibilmente egli si trova. E forse in mezzo c’è persino qualche tentativo danzereccio, del genere “discoteca per mongoloidi” più che altro, che poi è l’unica musica che vale la pena ballare. “The Night Hawk” (a proposito, il brano omonimo è una specie di shoegaze per le macchine come lo suonerebbe Blevin Blectum se solo usasse una Roland al posto del laptop) è probabilmente la mia uscita Dokuro preferita. Non scherzo, veramente. Adoro questo nastro. Che devo dire di più? Qui li potete vedere dal vivo:

... ma mi tocca dirvi che la performance qui sopra, con la cassetta in questione, c'entra pochino. Ah, che poi, spinto dai Black Sabbath/Fiji, dalla curiosità, e un po’ pure dalla nostalgia, ho scoperto una cosa: e cioè che Libythth è tornato! A sette anni di distanza dal suo ultimo album, a luglio è uscito un nuovo cd, ancora per Pththalo (che tra l’altro credevo defunta). Vedi tu, i casi della vita.

Omit – Interceptor (Helen Scarsdale Agency, 2008) / Seht - Dead Bees ((the((quiet)earth))suite) (PseudoArcana, 2008)

Nuova Zelanda terra inospitale, selvaggia, aborigena, ai confini del creato, a due passi dalla fine. Purtroppo non ci sono mai stato, quindi non posso certo ergermi al ruolo di tour operator e magnificare le bellezze terrene e paesaggistiche, ma da un punto di vista strettamente musicale di Nuova Zelanda se ne parla da anni e quindi capirai la novità di farlo ancora. Ma del resto siamo tutti innamorati di quella terra, di quei suoni, più o meno da quando a Scaruffi gli scoppiò una vena in testa ascoltando Dadamah e Dead C. e da li con i dischi della prima Kranky, fino al recente articolo di Mattioli dall’immortale titolo “KIWI 2000”. Ora, nella fattispecie, mi incarico di parlare brevemente (e superficialmente) di due recenti dischi targati NZ che rientrano a pieno titolo nel discorso, così… tanto per continuare a celebrare il culto.

Dietro la sigla OMIT si nasconde un certo Clinton Williams. Uno che deve avere un sacco di problemi di comunicazione con il prossimo. Personalmente scoprì la sua musica grazie ad una raccolta/compilation amatoriale chiamata Lathe Cuts che si trovava su soulseek qualche tempo fa e se non erro fu strombazzata ai quattro venti dal prode cercatore d’oro Starmelt (Andrea De Pellegrin). Nella compilation c’erano un sacco di nomi sconosciuti e un sacco di nomi più noti. Nella maggioranza dei casi era tutta gente con le chitarre al posto giusto tranne questo Omit che balzò subito al mio orecchio. Scoprì dopo che Omit era un solo artist e che aveva pubblicato per la Corpus Hermeticum, un biblico triplo intitolato Quad che era un po’ la punta dell’iceberg di una produzione tentacolare e ovviamente completamente solipsistica e masturbatoria, di cassette e cdr in proprio, attraverso un’etichetta che definire casalinga è poco, chiamata Deepskin Conceptual Mindmusic. Due anni or sono Jim Haynes con la sua Helen Scardale Agency ristampò il doppio album Tracer, e ora in questi giorni fa lo stesso con questo Interceptor. La caratteristica di Omit è quella di fare proprio quello che dice il nome della sua label: MusicaMentale Concettuale ProfondamenteSottopelle. Generalmente i nomi presi in prestito per spiegare di che musica si tratta sono Clock DVA (ma rallentato e scassato), Mika Vainio e Pan Sonic (ma meno hi-fi), Throbbing Gristle e l’universo industriale in toto (ma più concettuale e meno orrorifico), Klaus Schulze (ma meno cosmico).

Insomma, non c’è proprio nessuno che faccia esattamente quello che fa Omit. Per me è una specie di Jandek digitale e per via della sua produzione incessante e delle sue durate chilometriche mi fa venire in mente Muslimgauze (ma senza essere medio-orientale pro Hezbollah!). Interceptor è ovviamente un doppio disco lunghissimo e pesante come un meteorite che si stacca dall’orbita di Saturno e ti piomba dritto dritto sulle palle. Non esattamente musica da ascoltare quando si vuole passare un po’ di tempo in spensieratezza o quando fuori ci sono le giornate di sole e i bimbi giocano in cortile, ma hey… state sul merda blog, quindi siete in qualche modo già coscienti dei vostri peccati. Contraddistinto dal solito e costante ticchettio digital-valvolare-analogico-androide Interceptor mi sembra anche più monolitico del precedente Tracer. Sicuramente meno votato alla dark ambient e più al battito inintelligibile. Soprattutto per il primo disco. La sci-fi post-atomica di Omit non prevede nessun Hal 9000 che impazzisce e non ha ancora scoperto i cristalli liquidi. Omit non è gli Autechre. I suoi loop digitali conservano sempre un fascino grezzo, valvolare, lo-fi, in alcuni casi molto sporco come possono esserlo certi ritmi dei Factrix. Più che sulle navicelle di 2001, stiamo dalle parti della fantascienza cheap del primo Solaris di Tarkovsky. O meglio ancora, siamo già nel dopo bomba “con gli avvoltori sulle case sopra la città, senza pietà”. Omit sonorizza “la follia che nelle strade va” con gli allucinati corridoi di HorZtial Tracking SyStem, Transmitter LoGGer, Drop PROcess Operator, ToTal Point Failure, WaveForm Rider. La durata è eccessiva, ma per calarti nel suo mondo Omit ha bisogno di prenderti per sfinimento. Dopo due ore di ascolto di Interceptor sei in uno stato di trance allucinatorio. Dopo 8 ore ininterrotte perdi cognizione del tuo status di essere umano. Dopo 12 ore sei un androide.

L’altro aborigeno di questa doppia recensione è un altro dei miei eroi, il multiplo Seht, also known as Stephen Clover. Oltre al fatto che Stephen fa un sacco di cose, tra cui il programmatore in php, infatti è lui che ha programmato il sito nuovo di Foxy Digitalis, Stephen è anche uno che fa, mangia e caca droni, come se niente fosse. Fin dal primo momento che l’ho ascoltato mi sono subito innamorato di lui. In senso intelletual-musical-platonico ovviamente. Se avete letto KIWI 2000 (ma non era più fico chiamarlo KIWI 2001: Odissea nella Nuova Zelanda?) sapete già tutto e io non starò a dilungarmi ulteriormente. Ma Seht se ne esce quest’anno con questo suo ultimo lavoro, che a parer mio va a fare direttamente il paio con The Green Morning. Dead Bees si compone di due lunghissimi movimenti. One Moment dura 36 minuti. A Danse. Four Moments ne dura 23 di minuti. Sono droni quindi cosa volete di più? E poco importa che Campbell Kneale sostenga che definire la musica di Seht come drone music è come dire che l’antartico è bianco, One Moment proprio quello è…una placida passeggiata di droni con le onde bianche dell’antartico a fare da congelante e congelata marea… infatti per metà stiamo a due passi dalla new age bella e buona, per l’altra vicinissimi alla musica cosmica. Ben più strambo e anomalo l’altro brano. Field recordings e campionamenti rielaborati di note d’organo per un balletto stile Lago dei Cigni che vengono piano piano coperti da un noise di sottofondo e poi inabissate nuovamente nell’oltremondo dei droni sospesi cosi caratteristico di Seht. Detto poi che il disco esce per la Pseudo Arcana di Anthony Milton figlia e ultima erede delle ormai mitologiche Corpus Herneticum e Xpressway, avete un distillato perfetto (quasi… qui non ci sono le chitarre) del sempre moderno e mai inattuale sound neozelandese.

Factums - "A Primitive Future - Original Soundtrack" (Assophon, 2008)

I Factums hanno sempre avuto un certo gusto per le copertine dei loro dischi. “Alien Native” piazzava un paio di semiaborigeni pittati e nascosti da copricapi strani, “Spells and Charms” un insetto-fossile, “The Sistrum” tre mostri marini mezzi uomini e mezzi pesci. Metteteci poi le loro esibizioni live e la collaborazione col videoartist Brent Watanabe, e avrete più o meno un risultato del genere:

Insomma, quello che voglio dire è che il trio di Seattle una sua estetica precisa ce l’ha. Viene da pensare a un mondo al tempo stesso preistorico e futuribile, sfasato e un po’ selvaggio, alieno come furono alieni i panorami di Residents e Men’s Recovery Project, due nomi che – guarda caso – paiono influenzare in maniera profonda l’operato del gruppo. Prima ancora che fare musica, i Factums suggeriscono un immaginario: recentemente mi è capitato di scambiare un po’ di chiacchiere con loro, e tutti e tre hanno molto insistito sugli aspetti “visivi” della faccenda. Che questo “A Primitive Future” sia quindi concepito come original soundtrack di un film che non esiste, e che già nel titolo dichiari l’universo di competenza (un “futuro primitivo”, appunto), non stupisce granché. Ah già, e poi c’è la copertina: raffigura una foresta di felci sfocata, ambigua, come immersa in una nebbia che potrebbe appartenere tanto a una Terra dei primordi quanto a un pianeta parallelo. E’ il mondo dei Factums, quello stesso dove scorrazzano gli aborigeni selvaggi e i mezziuomini del mare.

La musica viene di conseguenza. “A Primitive Future” è il più sperimentale tra gli album del trio, il che sembra inevitabile visto il concept alla base del progetto. Qualunque sia il film di cui il disco è colonna sonora, deve trattarsi di un film dalla trama labile e dalle immagini, più che rovinate, guastate da un tempo misurabile in ere geologiche: i suoni arrivano dal nulla e nel nulla spariscono, le trame sono astratte, le geometrie incerte, e la sola Lotus, piazzata tra l’altro quasi in apertura, sembra ricordarsi (seppur vagamente) della vecchia forma-canzone, trascinandosi per diversi minuti di cavalcata in consueto stile Chrome-Cabaret Voltaire. Il resto dei brani si muove tra balbettii analogici, voci filtrate, e improvvisazioni in circuit bent, il tutto ricoperto – come al solito – da una coltre di bassa fedeltà che è da sempre lo strumento aggiunto del trio. I riferimenti stanno ancora in quel postpunk di confine che lega assieme Throbbing Gristle e Minimal Man, Residents e Factrix, Sheffield industrial e San Francisco Subterranean, ma la sensibilità è di stampo garage, e la prassi molto simile a quella dei noisers anni 2000. Mancano, si diceva prima, le canzoni, e un po’ è un peccato perché dopotutto sono le canzoni a fare dei Factums un’insolita eccezione a cavallo tra scelleratezze out e istintività weird punk. Ma le lunghe, estenuanti Basin e Looking for the Armpit of a Snake suonano morbose e assillanti come meglio non potrebbero, e a tal proposito ha ragione la Assophon (qui al suo terzo numero di catalogo; l’etichetta è legata a stretto giro con Sublime Frequencies e Sun City Girls) quando ipotizza una versione sci-fi di roba alla Dead C. Non male.

Dredd Foole - Kissing the Contemporary Bliss (Child of Microtones; 2005; Family Vineyard; 2008)

C’è una cosa che dovreste sapere prima di acquistare questo album, ma anche (e forse soprattutto) prima di ridurlo (o scaricarlo) in mp3. Questo album contiene fantasmi.

Letteralmente, e adesso vi spiego perché. Ho le prove inconfutabili.

Siccome stiamo ad agosto e dacchè non posso più riempire sacchi di barbabietole durante l’estate mi ritrovo a dover fare i conti con la spiacevole contingenza di dover fare le ferie i primi 15 di agosto. Naturalmente la situazione mi ha colto impreparato e siccome non sono aduso a programmare le ferie con quei 4 mesi di anticipo mi ritrovo a casa, immerso in un caldo pernicioso e con nulla in giro da fare che non siano concerti di salsa, sfilate di moda provinciali, feste sfinenti e barcollanti sulla spiaggia e passeggiate scialbe e guardare le magliette e le scarpe che tirano quest’anno (e nessuno pensa mai ai calzini!). Ad ogni modo la Family Vineyard ha la bella pensata di ristampare questo doppio cd uscito in cd-r nelle solite ridicole 99 copie nel 2005 su Child Of Microtones, l’etichetta degli ubiqui Matt Valentine ed Erika Elder. La ristampa del disco ha riportato la mia attenzione su Dredd Foole, personaggio chiave della New Weird America per come la battezzò David Keenan nel 2003 all’indomani del Brattleboro Music Festival e sorta di grande vecchio della scena tutta, ma su questo torniamo dopo.

Il punto è che finalmente mi ritrovo per le orecchie un bel po’ di sano stoned-folk sbrodolante psichedelia e solitudine. Niente di meglio come sottofondo per le mie escursioni notturne alla ricerca del fresco nelle strade spoglie e tra le case meno ovvie della mia cittadina. Bello, fresco e riconciliante. Capita poi che me ne torno a casa, piuttosto tardi, e mi butto a letto dopo aver riposto, spento, sul comodino il lettore di mp3 reduce da una sessione di una cinquantina di minuti del folk disastrato di Foole. Fuori c’è vento, le tapparelle sbattono e si sente qualche sibilo. Forse addirittura troppi, tant’è che aprendo gli occhi scorgo una terrorizzante luce blu alla mia destra. Mi levo abbastanza di soprassalto e scopro che il lettore si era acceso e dalle cuffie provenivano gli ululati acustici di Foole. Forse non l’avevo spento bene. Lo spengo di nuovo e mi rigiro ma tempo altri 3 minuti e il fenomeno si ripresenta. Accendo la luce, scuoto la testa e spengo nuovamente il lettore, curandomi di premere il tasto di spegnimento più a lungo del necessario. Chiuso e mi rimetto a letto ma, manco a dirlo, ancora una volta gli echi del wild-folk di “Kissing the Contemporary Bliss” si ripresentano al mio orecchio sinistro. A questo punto smembro letteralmente il lettore e gli levo pure le pile. Quella notte poi ho dormito fino a mattina. I fantasmi almeno delle pile hanno bisogno.

Vorreste poi sapere della musica? Beh, per quanto mi riguarda è la cosa migliore di Foole, grande anche per i suoi innumerevoli difetti.

Dell’uomo si sanno all’incirca queste cose: Dan Ireton classe 1950 pare che abbia alle spalle un’esperienza estemporanea in una garage-band nei 60’s, nell’area di Boston in cui ancora risiede. Negli 80 realizza due album e qualche singolo coi Din, che di fatto erano il Volcano Suns, formazione di Peter Prescott, ex batterista dei Mission of Burma (i quali furono la backing band di Foole nei suoi primissimi singoli). In questi dischi, improntati a un rock aggressivo dalle tinte post-punk ma nella sostanza non poco tradizionalista e memore dei ’60, spicca soprattutto la voce autoritaria, non bella e nemmeno troppo intonata, di Foole che ha una capacità spiccata e probabilmente innata di conferire drammaticità a quello che canta. Negli anni ’90 i Din faranno un altro disco (che non ho ascoltato) e la formazione annovererà gente come Thurston Moore, Chris Corsano e i Pelt.

Da solista il suo primo album, “In The Quest Of Tense” del ’94, pare che abbia colpito in profondità parecchie orecchie (cioè, il disco ha venduto un cazzo, ma è arrivato alle orecchie giuste): almeno Matt Valentine, i Charalambides, Jack Rose e Ben Chasny, gli uomini chiave della New Weird America e del festival di Brattleboro, al quale partecipò Foole, ovviamente, ma anche un vecchio ancora più vecchio come Michael “The Snock” Hurley. “In The Quest Of Tense” è piuttosto simile a “Blue Corpse” di Jandek (tra i preferiti di sempre di Christina Carter, guarda un po’), nel suo afflato buckelyiano e nella sua solitudine disperata. Le differenze sono che Foole cerca di suonare leggermente meglio del roscio texano e che con la voce emette vocalizzi liberi e animaleschi, a loro modo persino lievi, che non esistono nell’ancor più monocromatica musica del “collega”.

Ad ogni modo questo “Kissing the Contemporary Bliss” è il secondo disco realizzato da Foole con Valentine e la Elder (dopo l’inferiore Daze on the Mounts, già ristampato l’anno scorso) e anche il non poco importante banjoista Coot Moon, che contribuisce ad alleggerire la ridondanza di brani come Walk Right In e a dare sostanza terrena al deliquio di Boom Boom. Il punto è che anziché brancolare nelle ombre di un folk stralunato e strastonato come nelle uscite precedenti c’è molto più spazio per il blues, le acusticherie spinose e gli spazi vuoti. La voce, che è la sua caratteristica migliore, si sente anche meno del solito ma il disco rimane molto bello. Valentine e la Elder sono i collaboratori ideali del nostro, perché capacissimi di destreggiarsi in maniera profonda, spirituale e professionale insieme, nei mille rivoli della cosa psych-folk, laddove Foole è un musicista semi-autistico ma capace di superare in un attimo e di gran lunga il flebile duo per intensità interpretativa, imprevedibilità, senso di dannazione e lieve sentore di cialtroneria.

Che dire, trattasi di folk acustico tradizionalissimo dilatato e disastrato a dovere, con qualche sporadica accelerazione slide (la dylaniana Girl From The North Country), impregnato di voci livide e fantasmi veri (l’impaurito astrattismo di Above Ground Friend , prossimo al Keiji Haino sublime e lunare di “To start with, let's remove the color”), qualche parentesi strumentale più lieve e interlocutoria in mezzo ai cocci rotti, ai giochi di specchi elettrici e ai sommessi e per lo più irriconoscibili omaggi ai maestri (oltre a Dylan anche Robert Johnson, Washington Phillips e Gus Cannon