Jackie-O Motherfucker – The Blood of Life


(2008, Fire Records)

In a move not dissimilar to RTX, JOMF have released a quasi-live album. The Blood of Life was recorded in one go, one night (November 29 2007) in Holland. Their last record, Valley of Fire, was a delightfully mellow slice of music that fit the cosy winter indoors to a greater degree than expected. It also made for an effective companion purchase to Radiohead’s In Rainbows.

The Blood of Life contains the last album’s title track, as well as renditions of JOMF family favourites ‘Hey! Mr Sky’ and ‘The Grave’, as well as the traditional ‘Lost Jimmy Walen’. The record closes with the sprawling ‘The Blood of Life’, more on which later.

Authenticity seems rather a big priority with this scene. As noble as their motives surely are, I always infer dishonesty when people nowadays attempt ‘legitimate’ blues/folk. It just seems a bit wrong, whether it’s this lot, No Neck Blues Band or the Black Keys. It is inherently inauthentic, a fact that cannot be changed by the hiss of tape-legitimacy, despite the evident goodwill.

The Blood of Life isn’t a bad record. It’s really rather good, once you get past the signifiers of scene. When I say this is more an alternative rock album than anything else, I mean that in a positive way.

The sedate(d) vocals are vaguely reminiscent of Thurston Moore, and the regular guitar arpeggios and sing-song melodies recall a simpler time. A time of Hoon and Farrell, of ‘Say Hello 2 Heaven’ and ‘Rotten Apple’; just shorn of the gloss and accessibility. This is presumably not what JOMF were shooting for, but it is what it is.

Listening with a critic’s ear, I cannot avoid the (seemingly intentional) flat notes, the repetition and the lack of something of which to grab hold. Like the last Lustmord, this is mood-dependent music: if you are ‘chilling’, on a ‘bean bag’, smoking a ‘jazz’ cigarette, it should more than likely prove enjoyable.

Also like the Lustmord, the most impressive song is the epic. I’m not sure why the longest of a set of similarly-paced songs should be the best (logic would suggest it’d be boring). But, whether its expanse provides more space in which to dwell, to appreciate – or whether it is due to the force of sheer inertia, ‘The Blood of Life’ is where it’s at.

An intriguing document of where a band was on one particular night, The Blood of Life makes for a fine appetiser for the next album proper, due early next year. On its own merits, this stripped-down, subtle grower may try your patience before it has time to take root.

Cash mountain

While I’m here – and complaining – I have to mention something that would be amusing if it wasn’t so fucking sad. I like vinyl. I like when bands get their old albums re-pressed on vinyl. Keeps the eBay hucksters and flippers disgruntled and prices low. Hooray to that, I say. But it chagrins me to a great degree to see idiocy like this carny trick.

Mastodon are a really good band. After an inauspicious start (their debut wasn’t a patch on In the Eyes of God, the Today Is The Day album half the band played on before their ‘Stodon days), they released two damn fine albums in Leviathan and Blood Mountain. So they have released three albums, the last even attaining the status of ‘token metal album’ on the magazines’ year-end lists for 2006. How much would you pay for their collection to be pressed once more on vinyl?

I’ll clarify matters. On top of the three albums, there is an odds-and-sods collection, Call of the Mastodon. Throw in a live set and how much would you pay? Relapse tends to release their LPs for about $16. So 16 x five is $80. Sounds fair, even if I don’t really want odds, sods, or live sets.

How about $268 if you’re in Europe. (Or $275 if you read the small print.)

Looks to me like someone saw the money Isis made from selling extortionate career box sets, and thought ‘hey, they hadn’t even been good for the second half of that decade!* Imagine how hard we’re gonna coin it’. The really sad thing is it will sell out. Even sadder, 90% of purchasers will make a profit when they re-sell on eBay in six months or so. Cynical, moi?

There will be some really good music in that box set, but that price is ridiculous. You can’t even pretend to be in it for the music when you charge amounts like that for a retrospective on a three-album band. And I do wish Relapse would stop with the goddamn splatter vinyl. That joke isn’t funny any more. Solid colours please. Or just black vinyl. Some of us like to listen to our records.

At least this version of Blood Mountain seems to be on two discs. Shame they couldn’t have done that from the start.

* Prove me wrong with yer next record, Isis. Prove me wrong. Or just do another Old Man Gloom album instead.

Just a minute…

I recently received a vinyl copy of Just a Souvenir, by Squarepusher. That is to say I bought it. It should come as no surprise when I say it is a contender for my album of the year. Fools write it off as ‘muzak’. Please let me know exactly which muzak rocks as much as ‘Delta-V’ or ‘Planet Tensor’. Far too many people these days think they are record copany executives, consigning music to the (recycle) bin if they are not immediately enamoured with it. Screw them.

Anyway, that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is to mention how thin and flimsy the record itself is. I’m sure Warp records never used to be like that. Not my Big Loada. Nor even recent albums like Mira Calix’s Eyes Set Against the Sun or Boards Of Canada’s Trans Canada Highway. They were satisfyingly sturdy pieces of work, much like the vinyl pressed for Planet Mu or Hyperdub. I love their records.

Perhaps I am over-reacting. Indeed, I am yet to even give the album a listen in its wax state. Perhaps it sounds fine. I just hope it’s not a portent. Credit crunch and all that. Lea was telling me his copy of the new Gang Gang Dance album is similarly unimpressive, so I might order the U.S. pressing in. If there’s a difference.

Teeth Of The Sea – Orphaned by the Ocean

(2009, Rocket)

At some point this decade, some clever soul coined the term ‘post metal. Goodness knows why; perhaps they were bitter at post rock almost completely petering out by 2002. (Can you name a band not from Japan who is any good at post rock?) Regardless, the term ‘post metal’ is now roaming the land, and it apparently refers to bands influenced by Neurosis.

Some would extend the meaning to ‘bands influenced by Neurosis and Isis’ (or, more insultingly, ‘NeurIsis’), but that is tautology considering Isis started out as little more than a Neurosis tribute band. They are now little more than a sleep aid, but that’s for another post.

What amuses me about post metal is the fact that none of it is actually what one would call metal. I don’t mean that in the snotty sense that an old rocker would say Korn or Tool wasn’t metal, but more in the sense that most of it lacks any discernable hall mark of metal.

Justin Broadrick was once in a metal band. Pelican is on a metal label. Isis was once a metal band. But none of those facts mean what those artist are now playing should be deemed metal. The Angelic Process was a great band. Nadja are pretty good. I would describe both as really heavy indie. Old school indie, like My Bloody Valentine or early Cocteau Twins/JAMC.

This is not a diss post. A lot of it is really good. The mentioned Angelic Process: released a fantastic album last year, and the story of the band (man) is genuinely upsetting. Neurosis have been known to enjoy their moments in the musical sun. Earth, Hyatari and Kayo Dot have released some of the most compelling albums of any stripe this decade. Grails and Across Tundras are both galloping across the prairie with their epic tales of not-doom.

Because it’s not doom, is it? The riffs lack that earthy solidity that has characterised slow metal since February 13 1970. Sabbath to Rainbow, to Venom, to St. Vitus, Trouble, Candlemass, Cathedral, Electric Wizard and Iron Monkey. The darkness is not there, and if there is a crushing power present, it is benign, almost accidental. Kyuss were heavy, but blissfully so. They weren’t metal or doom. Cheap journos called them ‘stoner’, but I always preferred ‘desert rock’, as the riffs rustled up by them and their kind (Masters of Reality, Karma To Burn, Fu Manchu) were far more effectively thought of as aural sandstorms. Riffs the size of dunes – and almost as free form, with periods of expanse, wherein the mind could wander for days at a time.

I mentioned Grails and Across Tundras, perfect examples of what would in another age have been desert rock. However, in this Southern Lord era where doom is cool and all must have the aegis of metal bestowed on it, we get… well it’s not quite metal… post-metal? Yeah, sure.

Following in the footsteps of these bands, and the revitalised Earth, comes Teeth Of The Sea. If they are not new, they certainly are to me. I have no research to back this up, but I assume they are nothing to do with Mouth Of The Architect. They plough a similar furrow, though, of the epic, post-Neurosis rock vistas.

‘Only Fools on Horse’ is almost an all-of-the-above option. Throbbing bass, the threat of looming thundercloud, but with a USP of brass instrumentation. It rather hints of Morricone, but without that touch of genius. It’s not bad, though, and certainly quite heartening a start.

‘Latin Inches’ builds momentum gradually. The percussion is engaging as guitars gently shimmer over it. Then comes the Bargeldian guitar clatter; that axe-as-rhythm that is so sorely missing from the Bad Seeds these days. It adds texture, and still promises bludgeoning to come. ‘Coraniaid’ is a brief dabble that continues the promise. It is still rather ominous, but you find yourself checking your watch.

Thankfully, ‘Swear Blind the Alsatian’s Melting’ (they have to be English with a title like that) changes the mood. Its slow, clear arpeggio is reminiscent of the quieter moments of the incorrectly maligned last Tool album. The trumpet returns to add colour, and an actual rhythm enters the mix. Something danceable! It doesn’t last long, but provides optimism as the structure gleefully degenerated into slow guitar squeal, brass drone and bass threat.

The majority of the second half of the album is taken up by two songs – ‘Dreadnought’ and ‘Sentimental Journey’. These mini-epics (aren’t they all?) bring the mood, and the tempo, back down to a crawl. There’s more trumpet on this one. I’m sure they want the instrument to become for them what the sax has for Wolf Eyes – their chosen deadly weapon – but it instead makes Teeth Of The Sea sound rather too much like the Chumbawamba of the post-Oceanic scene.

The brief ‘Knees Like Knives’ initially brings to mind the Mars Volta’s ambient preamble of synthesised nature, but gets lost in the foliage, from which ‘Sentimental Journey’ emerges.

This final song on the album builds, and builds, and actually goes somewhere. Admittedly, the song implodes, instead of exploding, when it is due to kick in, but at least some noise turns up. It seems that – for the most part – one can define post metal as ‘metal without the catharsis’. If that is the case, Orphaned by the Ocean is a fine example. As an album of rock music, an artistic statement on which the band can hang its collective hat, it embodies the sub-genre at its most anodyne.