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DAILY RECORDS: The Body & Japanese Gum

The Body – All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood (Aum War Records)
While the vast majority of heavy music focuses on darkness in its various permutations, the most recent release by Providence’s The Body offers a more dualistic approach which is, if not exactly rainbow-hued, a more dynamic exploration of the grey areas between abrasion and consonance, and in the process have written what will very likely be the best album to be released this year.

Originally known for their minimalist approach – the band’s lineup on previous albums consisted of one guitarist and one drummer – The Body’s older albums consisted of a lo-fi dirge owing equally to the pummeling noise-rock of the Swans or Godflesh and the harsh, sharply-politicized content of the 90s DIY hardcore scene from which they were spawned. All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood does not lack any of the band’s characteristic doomy abrasion, but expands upon it, utilizing a cast of thirty guest musicians to broaden their musical palette without seeming like a cheap gimmick, eschewing minimalism without casting aside anything else of their sound. Saxophones pop up without seeming jazzy, sheets of white noise punctuate songs like “Empty Hearth” and “A Body” without threatening to turn the whole thing into a Merzbow record, and the fourteen-minute finale “Lathspell I Name You” features eight additional percussionists without devolving into onanistic drum-circle self-indulgence. Most prominent are the choral vocals, provided by the thirteen-member Assembly Of Light Choir. These steer far clear of the sort of quasi-orchestral elements many heavier bands attempt – there is no bombastic melodrama, and the vocalists are featured prominently rather than being used for slight embellishment. It’s beautiful in its rawness – sacred music for those whose only meaningful vision of divinity presented itself in the form of overamplified bands in crowded basements, trading their catharsis for a half tank of gas worth of door money and the opportunity to further spread their gospel of discontent.

And there is no shortage of discontent here. The lyrics – the album’s most consistent element, never veering far from intimations of the apocalypse - tread the fine line between jeremiad and malediction, falling somewhere between a secular John the Baptist and Shoko Asahara without the megalomania. There are songs which meditate on doom and desolation - “Ruiner” excoriates equally those who worship at the temples of God and science – and those, like “Song Of Sarin, The Brave,” which actively invite it. The songs suggest that whatever soul we may have is as scorched and barren as the planet will soon be, and the only elements suggesting otherwise are steeped in the language of retribution. “Repayment in kind I demand / A just finality I deserve” are the last lines sung on this album, and while The Body are probably not cooking up nerve gas at home (as one of their songs deals with pretty explicitly), they are lashing out against the world’s injustices and shortcomings with the weapon for which they are best known. Only this time, their expanded lineup presents more of a unified front – an army disguised as an orchestra, prophets in the wilderness, a faint light in the darkness.

Japanese Gum - Hey Folks! Nevermind, We Are All Galling Down!

This is a tough one to review. When an artist relies almost exclusively on borrowing from more established artists, even when they do it well and borrow from people who do the same, how much credit can they really be given? In the case of the Japanese Gum album, it’s hard to tell how much credit to give them. The first few M83 albums were an excellent mix of glitchy electronics and shoegazey guitar, but apparently these guys took those releases as their guiding light in all creative matters, attempting to pull off the same combination but rarely doing it with the same skill as the albums they aspire to.

Which isn’t to say that any of the songs on Hey Folks! Nevermind, We Are All Galling Down! are notably bad. Everything is in place – the effects-laden guitars, the rushes of synthesizer, the off-kilter drum machines, the breathy vocals – but the songs are such well-mannered tributes to those artists from whom they draw inspiration (and I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt by making that plural – as stated earlier, any of these songs could conceivably be old M83 outtakes) that the whole affair is pleasant but not especially memorable. There are moments that show promise and are able to break up the album’s monotony – the heavier dissonance of “Chlorine Blue” or the backwards-masked vocals of “Mistake/Ghost” for instance – but these are unfortunately few and far between.

There is something to be said for egalitarianism in music. One of the most inspirational aspects of rock and roll is its decentralization of talent – with the right tools and the right motivation, anybody can do it. This type of music is case in point. With the right arsenal of guitar effects pedals, anyone can come up with a reasonable approximation of this sound. But this is no guarantee that it will be done well, just as there is no correlation between the ease with which something should be done and the necessity for it. Japanese Gum illustrate this idea well – their music is not challenging on any level, neither technically, aesthetically, nor emotionally, and tends to settle for pleasant, innocuous imitation. Not to belabor the point, but diehard M83 fans who desperately wish for more of that band’s earliest material might appreciate this, but it’s not strongly recommended for anybody else.

ed. note - Japanese Gum did the soundtrack for this. http://www.nike.com/nke6/partnersincrime

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Jack Control of World Burns To Death

There is a common saying within certain punk rock circles that Ronald Reagan inspired more hardcore songs in his day than any actual band did, suggesting that any movement based on protest or righteous indignation needs a perceived injustice as a jumping-off point. One might think that the world would have seen the same explosion of socially conscious hardcore over the past decade, but with a few notable exceptions, that chorus of dissent never materialized. Faced with the evisceration of our civil rights, the worst economy the country has seen in generations, and an escalation in the exploitative attitude often held towards the environment and our fellow man (often justified most vocally by those who would posit themselves as Reagan’s ideological and spiritual successors), hardcore responded by preening about sneakers, by collecting myspace friends, and by doing its damndest to rehash the most superficial characteristics of ’82, ’88, or some other dead and gone era.

But not everybody fell into that trap. Since 2000, Austin, Texas’s World Burns To Death have thrown down the gauntlet with each successive release, offering listeners one relentless blast after another. Eschewing the pre-packaged sloganeering and readymade ideology of so many ostensibly political bands, World Burns To Death offer a nuanced analysis of the world’s ills – one withering jeremiad after another, each steeped in history and philosophy without tempering the sledgehammer bluntness or indulging in didactic preaching. I got a few questions in with Jack Control, the band’s imposing frontman.