Pinkish Black's "Concept Unification"/Magma's "Zess"
As happy accident would have it, new albums by Pinkish Black (Fort Worth's very own heavy progressive experimental duo) and Magma (the French operatic prog outfit who were a formative influence on Pinkish Black's drummer-synthesist Jon Teague back when he was in Yeti, 20-odd years ago) dropped on the same date this year, allowing your humble chronicler o' events to listen to and contemplate both records side-by-side. (Teague says he was mortified to learn that Magma drummer-mastermind Christian Vander heard a Pinkish Black track and pronounced the music "too dark.")
In the run-up to recording Concept Unification -- Pinkish Black's fourth album in their nine-year existence and their second for Relapse Records -- both of the band's members had been focused on composition: singer-keyboardist Daron Beck via his work on the soundtrack for the documentary The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story, Teague through developing material for his solo synth project Zeitmorder. As part of their pre-production process, they set about updating and completing a couple of song ideas that had been around since their previous incarnation as The Great Tyrant. During the sessions, they actively collaborated with ace engineer Britt Robisheaux to capture the details and nuances of their sound.
The result is the strongest set of material they've written yet, electronics that are integrated more musically than ever before, and a recording that better approximates the precisely controlled and channeled force of a live show. Indeed, "Until" is the most bone-crushing rock we've heard to date from a band that often gets characterized, not entirely accurately, as "doom metal." The first single from the album, "Dialtone" -- a comment on the extinction of familiar technology -- is surprisingly engaging to the ear, a pop song veiled in dark menace (or perhaps anomie has just become more commonplace in the last couple of years).
Turning the record over, "Inanimatronic" sounds unusually ethereal, while the 12-minute album-closing opus "Next Solution" is a masterpiece, and possibly the best thing these guys have done. It starts out with a simple piano theme that gets developed with mounting intensity and choral grandeur, building tension that's released by a pummeling riff that recalls the one from Magma's "De Futura," until the theme returns for a triumphal closing restatement. Teague's fills on the track are worth the price of admission by themselves.
While the best way to hear Concept Unification is on sweet, sweet vinyl, be sure to use that download card, which will give you two additional, synth-only songs that don't appear on the LP. "Away Again" surrounds Beck's voice with shimmering waves of crystalline texture, while "We Wait" drives so relentlessly that it's easy to forget there are no drums on the track. Here Beck's voice -- this band's most underappreciated element, operating as it does in a register most Americans have forgotten exists -- rides higher than usual in the mix, where it belongs.
It's not hard to see how Magma's celestial jams -- a blend of jazz-rock and 20th century classical influences, featuring choral vocals, with lyrics depicting a sci-fi mythos and sung in a Germanic-sounding invented language -- would appeal to musos like Pinkish Black's Beck and Teague, obscurantist connoisseurs with their own strong aesthetic. Indeed, as The Great Tyrant, they recorded a cover of Magma's "Weidorje."
Zess has been a long time coming: originally composed in 1977, performed live from 1979 to 1983, revived in 2005 in a version that's DVD-available on Mythes et Legendes, Volume IV and viewable online here. But Vander always held off on recording the piece -- his vision of the end of existence -- because he felt it was incomplete. Until now.
The studio version of Zess was recorded in four sessions toward the end of last year by a stripped-down lineup of guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums (the latter played by ex-Zappa acolyte Morgan Agren, leaving Vander free to concentrate on singing), a seven-voice chorus (including Stella Vander, Christian's wife, who also sings solo), and the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. All told, the piece (divided into seven movements that flow seamlessly together) runs around the same length as A Love Supreme and What's Going On, which is appropriate, because that's the league it belongs in. For beneath the Magma mystique, the apocalyptic visions, and the harsh, guttural sound of the Kobaian language, this is Gallic soul music.
The invocation ("Da Zeuhl Wortz Dehm Wrennt") that Vander sings in French following the orchestral-choral introduction is nothing less than a hymn of gratitude to the "master of the forces of the universe." The unifying motif that underpins the piece is a two-chord vamp straight out of Coltrane (Vander's musical deity). Vander's rhythmic Kobaian vocalismo on "Di Woohr Spraser" has an ecstatic quality, halfway between scat singing and speaking in tongues. Variations on the theme follow, alternating between the orchestra, the solo singers, and the chorus, who wind up singing "Sanctus, sanctus" as the climax approaches, while Vander testifies like a Kobaian Holiness preacher. "Dumgehl Blao" provides a soul-cleansing valediction, with choral interjections echoing on high. Oblivion never sounded so inviting.
Now, will someone please play Monsieur Vander "Next Solution?"
In the run-up to recording Concept Unification -- Pinkish Black's fourth album in their nine-year existence and their second for Relapse Records -- both of the band's members had been focused on composition: singer-keyboardist Daron Beck via his work on the soundtrack for the documentary The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story, Teague through developing material for his solo synth project Zeitmorder. As part of their pre-production process, they set about updating and completing a couple of song ideas that had been around since their previous incarnation as The Great Tyrant. During the sessions, they actively collaborated with ace engineer Britt Robisheaux to capture the details and nuances of their sound.
The result is the strongest set of material they've written yet, electronics that are integrated more musically than ever before, and a recording that better approximates the precisely controlled and channeled force of a live show. Indeed, "Until" is the most bone-crushing rock we've heard to date from a band that often gets characterized, not entirely accurately, as "doom metal." The first single from the album, "Dialtone" -- a comment on the extinction of familiar technology -- is surprisingly engaging to the ear, a pop song veiled in dark menace (or perhaps anomie has just become more commonplace in the last couple of years).
Turning the record over, "Inanimatronic" sounds unusually ethereal, while the 12-minute album-closing opus "Next Solution" is a masterpiece, and possibly the best thing these guys have done. It starts out with a simple piano theme that gets developed with mounting intensity and choral grandeur, building tension that's released by a pummeling riff that recalls the one from Magma's "De Futura," until the theme returns for a triumphal closing restatement. Teague's fills on the track are worth the price of admission by themselves.
While the best way to hear Concept Unification is on sweet, sweet vinyl, be sure to use that download card, which will give you two additional, synth-only songs that don't appear on the LP. "Away Again" surrounds Beck's voice with shimmering waves of crystalline texture, while "We Wait" drives so relentlessly that it's easy to forget there are no drums on the track. Here Beck's voice -- this band's most underappreciated element, operating as it does in a register most Americans have forgotten exists -- rides higher than usual in the mix, where it belongs.
It's not hard to see how Magma's celestial jams -- a blend of jazz-rock and 20th century classical influences, featuring choral vocals, with lyrics depicting a sci-fi mythos and sung in a Germanic-sounding invented language -- would appeal to musos like Pinkish Black's Beck and Teague, obscurantist connoisseurs with their own strong aesthetic. Indeed, as The Great Tyrant, they recorded a cover of Magma's "Weidorje."
Zess has been a long time coming: originally composed in 1977, performed live from 1979 to 1983, revived in 2005 in a version that's DVD-available on Mythes et Legendes, Volume IV and viewable online here. But Vander always held off on recording the piece -- his vision of the end of existence -- because he felt it was incomplete. Until now.
The studio version of Zess was recorded in four sessions toward the end of last year by a stripped-down lineup of guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums (the latter played by ex-Zappa acolyte Morgan Agren, leaving Vander free to concentrate on singing), a seven-voice chorus (including Stella Vander, Christian's wife, who also sings solo), and the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. All told, the piece (divided into seven movements that flow seamlessly together) runs around the same length as A Love Supreme and What's Going On, which is appropriate, because that's the league it belongs in. For beneath the Magma mystique, the apocalyptic visions, and the harsh, guttural sound of the Kobaian language, this is Gallic soul music.
The invocation ("Da Zeuhl Wortz Dehm Wrennt") that Vander sings in French following the orchestral-choral introduction is nothing less than a hymn of gratitude to the "master of the forces of the universe." The unifying motif that underpins the piece is a two-chord vamp straight out of Coltrane (Vander's musical deity). Vander's rhythmic Kobaian vocalismo on "Di Woohr Spraser" has an ecstatic quality, halfway between scat singing and speaking in tongues. Variations on the theme follow, alternating between the orchestra, the solo singers, and the chorus, who wind up singing "Sanctus, sanctus" as the climax approaches, while Vander testifies like a Kobaian Holiness preacher. "Dumgehl Blao" provides a soul-cleansing valediction, with choral interjections echoing on high. Oblivion never sounded so inviting.
Now, will someone please play Monsieur Vander "Next Solution?"
posted by stashdauber at 8:02 PM
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