Music For Infants: My preliminary field notes indicate that babies, by and large, don’t give a shit about music. However, there are two exceptions in Vashti Bunyan and David Tibet, particularly Sleep Has His House. Weirds me the hell out, it does. Not because Sleep is a bad album, or because it is rightfully considered one of Current 93’s finest works and this indicates supernatural prescience, but because it’s about a dead father, sung by his living son.

But it soothes the savage beast, and so I worry not.

This past year was one of preparation and rediscovery. Health and Death and yet another triumphant Boredoms experience. Throbbing Gristle, set in motion during my own infancy, played “Discipline” in an old Masonic Temple and drew a circle around what I imagined my youth to be. Will Oldham demonstrated extreme American exceptionalism while millions inexplicably mourned a dead pedophile; Antony showed an overwhelming capacity for international superstardom, hemmed in only by being a beautiful woman who doesn’t look like one.

Some New Things I Loved:

An Imaginary Country; Tim Hecker is a man of genius, but he didn’t tell us that until this gentle slop fell into our laps.

Black Cascade; Yes, Wolves in the Throne Room is a one-note act of staggering inauthenticity according to those who know better than I, but this album has not left my player all year.

Tarot Sport; Shimmering anthems, so simple. Fuck Buttons as “Chariots of Fire”.

Get Color; I love the 80’s industrial-noise axis far more than I ever cared for post-punk, but Health’s balancing act makes me nostalgic for something I never experienced rather than annoyed by something I never experienced.

The Glass Bead Game; The most soothing recording of the last ten years.

Great Bringer of Night; This three song demo is one of my favorite things this year – whatever blackened doom sludge is, Coffinworm does it just the way I like it.

The Crying Light; Why wasn’t this in every Starbucks in America instead of Elvis Costello or some other useless old fuck?

Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free; Michael Gira is the underground’s best batting coach, grooming a stream of well-oiled players to leave his AA club for other pastures.

Some Other Things:

This year heard a heap of older Boards of Canada, whose oldest demo material has a sheen and guileless charm almost completely lacking from their later work. Same with The Black Dog, whose Radio Scarecrow got very little airplay and certainly didn’t keep any crows away. Explored the backcatalogues of Blackshaw and Fahey, and dang if I still don’t see a common thread beyond “talented guys with guitars”. Om had their moments with a new drummer, but ethno-hippy won the day while losing the war.

This year also heard a ton of metal. Old Death still thrills me. Apparently my bag is whatever you’d call new anthemic ambient black metal-ish stuff. I look forward to new work from Altar of Plagues and Coffinworm; unrelated I hope Mouth of the Architect pulls back from using female (or male, really) vocalists in such pedestrian ways. Back on track, supposedly the new Krallice is very good? Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s new one wasn’t too hot, and can someone please explain to me why Sunn is on everyone’s best list? Dear lord are they ever dull.

Biggest Surprise:

I really enjoy the Burzum album Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. As in “I listened to this album a bunch of times just this week.” Absolutely cheap and shitty, and the last track is a total panflute in the forest weep-fest that brings only tears of laughter. But it’s really quite good, and I recommend it wholeheartedly. Filosofem, however, is an overrated load of honkey-tonk.

Endnotes:

A monumental screed against bass cars lands me on WordPress.com’s frontpage, but not one person asks “Is mass murder really the proper response to public incivility?” A reasonable question, if you live alone in the woods and grow your own mycoproteins.

They played “Acid Police”!

They brought out a guy on a platform carried by bearers, playing drums in the style of a Roman emperor.

A dude called Lichens sat in a chair and made scary faces and beautiful shrieks to open and left after a tasteful ten minute set.

Eye wore the kind of drum major hat appropriate for the event, alternating between color guard chanting and a demi-human wailing. He’d fall screaming to his knees, then run back to the guitar tree and strike it with his color-coded batons, or loop over to his equipment rack to lowpass the hell out of the guitar part of “Acid Police”. The drums swelled in volume and ferocity based on his minimal direction. Everyone worked their asses off.

Overall they were tight as usual but more varied than the usual Boredoms sets of recent note. All are good, but this was the closest to capturing the sheer mania of 77 Boadrum.

Brooklyn Vegan has some nice pictures up and a quote from your friend and mine Matt about the crowd. Contra his opinion, I thought the crowd was fine. The one jerky guy (dude in a sports coat pounding the brew) took himself out of the game with a self-induced stagger; a half-filled Terminal 5 turned out to be far cooler, though still sweaty, than previous visits.

Since I’m going to be starting a long-term freeform noise project and kinetic installation called “screaming baby”, this was my last show for a long time. While it was just about as good a way to go out as one could possibly hope for, the days of taking off on a Thursday night to go see random acts are definitely over.

I’ll try to make exceptions for special cases and tours around 2012 or so. (Perhaps my missing out on some good acts is what the Mayans were warning us about?)

Terminal 5 used to be Club Exit, which I knew from radio ads and little else. Think a guido meat machine and you’re probably not too far off the mark – it’s not this venue in Greenpoint, though. It’s an interesting venue – loud but not too painful, cool and crisp and security was pretty good in terms of not beating people up and whatnot. Not that this was that sort of crowd, far too educated – and rail-thin – to engage in such ROCK AND ROLL shenanigans.

However: speaking of beatings, there was a whispy mustachioed type (who probably owns several fucking scarves) who repeatedly pushed his way through the crowd. And not like a pushy little girl, but just walking forward, oblivious to his surroundings. It’s funny how this band attracts one asshole per show – perhaps this guy was related to the shoe hands man from 77 flavors of awesome? Maybe he was just tripping his brains out? We’ve all been there, unable to pay attention to the rigors of social interaction, to the myriad rules and regulations that sometimes seem impossible to follow and completely meaningless in that context.

Either way, fuck him. Let the cancer gods do what they will.

Black Pus – being Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt – was ridiculously good. He was yelling these little guitar bits into a delay sampler, which was hilarious – warming up on air guitar while yelling into a mic. He also had some kinda drum-triggered synth doing dirty bass. A few moments of fiddling and then he would play his brains out. It was a really short set of about thirty minutes, with no filler. Scuttlebutt goes that a new Lightning Bolt tour will be around this summer. This is a good thing.

I don’t have a camera, and I’m not really into taking pictures, so you can get better stuff off of Brooklyn Vegan’s site or this flickr feed if you’re into that sort of thing – you can almost see the top of my pate if you squint hard enough. Anyway, Boredoms played on the floor, on a stage. Three drum kits, a guitar/sound tech and Eye, who opened again with those awesome light-sensitive egg things that acted like the coolest sounding theremins you’ve ever heard. (Let’s be honest – Theremins are kinda dumb for the most part.) Best of all, the guitar tree from last summer was back! Every time that motherfucker would hit that shit with his sticks you could feel the audience freak out.

I did a lot of screaming and I apologize if I was too annoying – again, let the cancer gods do as they will. Joe later said that most of the audience seemed bored, like a free jazz fan at a non-free jazz show, but I was far too drunk on ecstatic abandon (and drinking) to really notice. That a delightfully polite little mosh pit had opened up was just plain cute. It was many things, but delightfully cute is what it mostly was.

The first song was about an hour. I think. They’re still firmly in the “junk caught in the unblinking eye of god” period of work. The second song was maybe 35 or 40 minutes? I can’t really tell you. I also skipped on the encore, which was no doubt also super excellent, because I am old and my life is a travesty.

But I don’t take notes at this sort of thing. I’m there to have a transcendent experience and bop like someone who weighs much less than I do, not re-mediate a mediated experience for an alienated audience. Also, I have a terrible memory and I tend to be very bad at describing events to others.

For example, what was it like? Uh…they played on three drum kits and Eye screamed and hit the guitar tree and played droney synth screams and everyone was happy. There. Satisfied? Of course not.

But that’s what happened. Go see Boredoms! Don’t be the asshole who shoves people! Don’t wear shoes on your hands!

And don’t make fun of my royal blue totebag. I like it. I said I was buying it for my wife, but I lied.

There are three distinct periods of Boredoms recordings: screaming and flailing like you got your junk caught in a waffle iron, three-note acid rock from beyond the future and joyous screaming and flailing like you got your junk caught in The Unblinking Eye of God.

All three have something to recommend to them, depending on your tastes. Something that would seem like utter jackassery in someone else’s hands is inspired jackassery in theirs. Vice Records is giving a domestic release to Roots 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8, which showcases the evolution from category 1 Boredoms (twinkle twinkle magicfrog what?) to category 3’s beautiful evocation of controlled transcendence. A pure category 2 release – Super Roots 3 – is included for good luck, or good something. Thirty minutes worth, no less, and probably the most categorizable Boredoms album outside of Seadrum/House of Sun, a release which is exactly as you’d think it to be judging from the title.

Not everyone is ok with yelling and sound effects – in all seriousness the closest comparison is something like early Coil during the Gold is the Metal… era – and they might want to skip the first Super Roots. But they’d be fools to do so, missing out on quite a bit of chimes and chanting and screeching silliness. The entire album is all of 20 minutes long, and never stays in one mode for any length of time before switching over to an entirely new kind of farting/burping experience. Again, being a “quality brand” of “noise rock” these sorts of “experimental” pieces are crafted with purpose, not from laziness, and make a far gentler introduction to the band than – for example – my wife’s least favorite Boredoms song ever, “Acid Police” off of Chocolate Synthesizer. (I think it’s catchy and more snazzy than most musical endurance tests myself, but there’s no accounting for taste.)

Super Roots 3 is a firm category 2, a fast-tempo race with a singular hook that carries everything else. It bypasses the shortcomings of an acid revivalist band like Acid Mothers Temple by replacing looping tedium (sorry, never really cared for them) with speed. I’d like to think Japanese bodybuilders work out to stuff like this rather than the J-Pop equivalent of Ace of Bass – presuming that’s not a meaningless distinction – but to be frank I’m not even sure if bodybuilding is that popular in the land of ninjas and Pocky. Regardless, this is a muscular track (har har) and would be a pretty easy sell with your more open-minded metal and punk fans.

Now, Super Roots 5 stars off real quiet. Can’t barely hear nothing but some filters farting off resonance bursts and some yelling and BLAAAAAAAAAMO, ouch, that’s a lot of cymbals. So don’t get fooled and just let things start without waking the neighbors or hurting your ears. Nationalized health care is coming by hook or by crook, so your ears belong to me, hippie. Don’t ruin them for cheap kicks.

Super Roots 5 is a mixture of categories 1 and 2, and clocks in at over an hour in a single track named “Go!!!!!!” – I may have missed an exclamation point or two. Unlike Super Roots 3, there’s no real hook, but rather symbol swirls and an agressive drone that modulates slowly over the course of the track. It goes somewhere – wherever that may be – but takes its sweet time doing so. I could see this being good to clear out a bar at 3 am, though I must confess that my first impression left me to believe that it would be ideal combined with a rug and some pharma-grade DXM. Regardless of your hobbies, the end of the track is quite tight.

Super Roots 6 feels like it picks up right where 5 left, with a skittery drone that breaks into a minute of silence, followed by a sweet atmospheric track; a refreshing break from what’s come before. That’s a good way to describe this entry as a whole, since every bit is slightly different (and named after random numbers) despite having longer, more fleshed-out songs than most of these. The broken-toy-weirdo aesthetic is firmly entrenched, but Super Roots 6 is, by and large, quite pretty. Outside of 3’s straightforward groove, it’s probably also the most accessible of the lot, despite the fractures – lots of humming and chopped percussion, odd bits stuffed into odd places at off times. Quite relaxing. Eye sure does love that phase pedal though, and it shows up in nearly every piece. Super Roots 6 also has the coolest looking cover of the bunch.

Later-period Boredoms fans will especially dig Super Roots 7 and the way it straddles periods two and three by being rocky and repetitive but still grasping for a unifying melody. The twenty-minute middle track (“Borigonal”) literally unzips itself halfway through the song before swinging back into a variation on the earlier theme with a harder edge, which itself turns into a jazzy Portishead turntablist thing that is far better than any of those adjectives would make you believe.

The first and last tracks that bookend the main piece are continuations of the same theme – they may even have been the same work, just cut apart to accomodate the larger, “borigonal” spasm. They’re also not nearly as ballsy and dramatic, and the closer is definitely a kind of let-down after all that gooey middle goodness is gotten through.

Supposedly, Super Roots 8 is some kind of children’s TV show soundtrack (according to Wikipedia, for whatever that’s worth). I’d be interested in seeing the intro, just to see how badly they mangled the original song, even though I’m becoming increasingly convinced that anime in general is bad for children and adults alike. There are three iterations on this, with the same tonal singing but deeply varied percussion elements. The first is easily the most impressive, with wild swings and bursts, while the second is a klunky drum machine mix (as indicated by the name). The third is almost – almost – a traditional dub track, in the King Tubby sense, except it has no real bassline to speak of. A nice end to a very weird ride.

If you held a gun to my head, or even a sharp pencil, I’d rank them something like 6, 7, 3, 5, 8, 1. Hopefully the rumors of the NYC performance of 77 Drum in July are true (Boredoms frontman Eye + 77 drumkits = gotta see this). Boredoms live are something to be seen; the last tour had them playing with three drum kits while Eye jumped about using this little spherical motion detector thing to trigger samples and control a filter. Despite how sloppy that might sound, it was a tight and focused performance.What someone unfamiliar with the group might want to buy is heavily dependent on what their tastes are; or more accurately, where the boundaries of their tastes lie.

www.myspace.com/boredoms

www.vicerecords.com