the dead science: villainaire

 

i’ve been listening to black flag frequently for the past few days.  just to be clear lest anyone misinterpret what i’m saying the dead science sound NOTHING like black flag.  the only parallel i’ll draw is that i didn’t much care for either on first listen but both eventually sunk into my subconscious like a west of scotland male into alcoholism.  i never had much time for hardcore (and still don’t i s’pose) mainly because most of it seems so didactic and limiting and stupid macho.  the dead science would be the exact opposite of this posturing.

initially the record appeared so preposterous and highly strung – odd, i know, for a constellation release – that a tiny part of me wanted to smash it up into little asymmetrical artschool pieces.  in a long line of esoteric constellation singers sam mickens is now offically the big daddy.  once described by a fellow wordsmith as antony hegarty sitting on a vibrator.  his voice?  not far off that description incredibly. it’s also grown on me like a wanton tumour.  tremulous, aquiver, quaky, quivery, shaky, shivery, tremulant, twittery, jittery, palpitating, quavering, quivering, trembling, wavering.  it’s all of these things when it wants to be.  sometimes it snarls hysterically too.

so what of the music?  well having put on my columbo-esque dirty mac and gone investigating, a lot of comments/reviews/snipes have descended quickly into overblown gothic melodrama in an attempt to put music into words – ‘vocals as pale and wasting as the ghost of a murdered mistress’ says one fella.  not something i could ever be accused of (ha!).  me, i like to keep it real.  street.  whatever.  boiled down, distilled it’s pop music, fucked and huge and orchestral and played by jazz fiends but still ultimately pop.  played the way xiu xiu or blonde redhead or scott walker or the mountain goats play it.

lyrically it combines the fantasy world of comic books and the wu tang clan with grim moral realism and emotional introspection.  a bit like an opera except one where everybody’s uber-skinny as hell and blake gets to hang out with gza.

kicking off with throne of blood and some harp strum before threshing and flailing wildly yet with wiry control and precision; the record carries on in this way, occasionally pausing for breathy ballad or free jazz breakdown or chamber music interlude.  the vocals, the rhythm, the strings staccatoing all over the place.  it seems barely coherent yet diabolically complicated.

throne of blood (the jump off)

everything, everyone roams separate from the others but all heading down the same ornate path.  and there is so much going on it demands headphones and time and possibly two brains and four ears.  to say it’s all over the place would be doing villainaire a disservice but it somehow gives the impression simultaneously of sprawling virtuosity while cramming all this heady, heavy mad shit into three minutes with chorus and verse.

case in point: monster island czars.  starts with vv-vvmming bowed bass strings and guitar klang, bleeds into mad free jazz, fuzzy electric guitar solo, drowsydrunk horns, freddie mercuries ghostly vocal harmonies, before that guitar slides greasily back in and thrashes us to the end.  it takes all of three and a half minutes to do this.

i’m guessing in relation to yr standard constellation record this one might prove kind of divisive.  i fucking hope so. 

craig wedren of shudder to think and katrina ford of celebration make appearances.

here are some words i thought about using but didn’t for fear of succumbing to the over effusive mire of pretensiousness: majestic, sinister, theatrical, grim, sigh, croon, seductive, nihilistic.  i also wanted to describe them as a sexually ambiguous oxbow but couldn’t quite work it in quick enough.  not sure it’s true either.  whatcha think?

i hear there is also alternative versions of the album featuring other vocalists which should prove interesting given the love it / stove his head in with a tyre iron stylings of sam mickens. 

here’s some dvd style bonus material:

• white train
• drrrtymagneto
• gamma knife

sciencespace / constellation / absolutelykosher