GreyMachine - Disconnected (2009) album review

It was in the winter of 1991-92 that I first listened to the music of Justin K. Broadrick, onetime drummer/founder of the legendary Napalm Death, and I've never looked back. The album was the extraordinary "Streetcleaner" (1989), and it was percolating its way through college campuses and neighborhoods across North America, seeping its way into the minds of incredibly angry, nihilistic youth.

Broadrick has had his ups-and-downs over the years with the decline of Godflesh, numerous side-projects, a series of personal crises, but has survived the crash of the conventional music industry and come back with a real vengeance since 2005 and the first release of Jesu on the Hydrahead label, run by the inimitable heavy rock group Isis.

Broadrick is a real gadfly in the music world, crossing genre boundaries and conventions while pushing the envelope and creating new styles and approaches that are rapidly imitated (think the band Korn, a group whose style he doesn't want credit for) poorly, such as the hybridization of hip-hop and intensely heavy rock-stylings. But if there's a thread running through his music, it's the psychedelic, the ponderous, a gazing into the abyss of our common era, and that shines through more brightly in this new project than ever before. If you're a real aficionado of unforgivably heavy rock, layered, dense, and brutal, this is going to be your new fix for a very long time to come. It's projects like this that keep rock--barely living--alive in a microcosmic sense, and that's fine by me.

What's so shocking and exciting about this release, however, is that Broadrick has returned to playing drums once again, and it's been a long-time-coming. Other than possibly some playing on the "Sweet Tooth" project, I don't believe he's played drums on a recording in such a direct way since his time in Napalm Death in the 1980s, so this is a real historic occasion, and he's great on it. Reenlisting Dave Cochrane of God and Head of David was going to be a logical move as was the bass and electronics of the great Diarmuid ("Dermot") Dalton of Cable Regime and Jesu, while the inclusion of Isis guitarist and visual artist Aaron Turner compliments the general wash of sound you'd expect from a Broadrick-fronted project.

Layered doesn't even begin to describe the sound, this is a real feat of music engineering here where noise, heaviness, and the psychedelic create a very satisfying admixture that recalls Ornette Coleman's "harmolodics" theory. "Vultures Descend" is one of the more interesting and exciting tracks, but if I were to pick a favorite, it would have to be the destroying "Sweatshop," a cut that's going to please the most purist of Godflesh fans who've been wondering if Broadrick lost it after 2005. He hasn't, this was well worth the wait. It's strange, but in a way, he's cycled back to his Napalm Death days, the days of the legendary "SCUM" LP (1986), a heavily-layered affair awash in noise, now with the inclusion of discreet electronics, sampling, and few vocals at all. We got a taste of what was to come in 2003's final Techno Animal project, "Curse of the Golden Vampire," a project that was also reminiscent of ND in several areas and a good taste of how close drum and bass sounds to speed metal rhythmically!

Like the very best of JB's output, this album is going to be impossible to define. Every member but one rooks-in electronics, looping, sampling, and even the occasional synthesized sound that creates quite an onslaught. Imagine the layering and looping approach of electric period Miles (think "Bitches Brew") applied to a rock band and you're getting closer; guitars are subsumed by drums; drums are subsumed by the roar of the overall sound, fighting their way to the top; vocals occasionally fight their way up; synths and samples cut their way through the mix, while the bass keeps chugging. If it sounds like war, that's because it is, this, our common era. Disconnected couldn't be more timely or timeless.

GreyMachine, the return of apocalypse rock amidst the apocalyps

WWW--Grey Machine is Justin K. Broadrick (Godflesh, Final, Techno Animal, Napalm Death, ICE, etc.), Dave Cochrane (Head of David), Aaron Turner (Isis), Diarmuid Dalton (Godflesh, Cable Regime, Final), and their first release together that came out earlier this month promises to conquer, especially old school Godflesh fans like myself.

After the 2002 demise of that band, Broadrick moved on to form Jesu, his new rock project, and the first releases were pretty heavy, not that I haven't liked the Eno and postpunk inflections along the way, but...

Let's be honest: the last wide-release album of Jesu ("Conqueror") wasn't very good at all, it had a couple good tunes and lacked any real dynamic and fell pretty flat creatively. The singles, small-run releases on Broadrick's Avalanche imprint, and EPs since then have been a significant improvement even without the heft, the heaviness. If you don't like really heavy experimental music that eschews the rules of genre you won't like this, not that I care.

Apparently Justin was feeling a little wounded by the criticisms coming from old fans like myself and decided to show everyone that he's just as capable of apocalypse rock as he ever was and the first reviews are confirming that Grey Machine's "Disconnected" is that very thing, so it's time to breathe a sigh of relief. A review is forthcoming at this site, but have an ear-bleeding, soul-destroying listen of some song samples here in-the-meantime: http://www.last.fm/music/GREYMACHINE .

"Vultures Descend" is absolutely stunning in itself and also reminiscent of some of the best output by the Swans. Someone has to do the soundtrack to the apocalypse, and that man is Justin K. Broadrick along with his numerous collaborators. Projects like this transcend the boundaries of mere rock music. Enjoy (or don't).

The Bug-London Zoo (2008) album review

Kevin Martin almost never fails to surprise, and this new-installment of "The Bug" project featuring several Jamaican and UK dancehall and dub poetry artists is just another example of his prowess at creating something new and astonishing musically.

The differences between his first "Tapping the Conversation" (1997, with DJ Vadim), 2003's "Pressure," various EPs and 2005's "Killing Sound" compilation of hardcore electronic reggae, are vast here. The reason? A bigger budget, meaning Martin had more time to refine and actually be in the same room with the vocalists rather than through tape/disc-trading and internet transmissions, then pasting it all together at the end. Face-to-face collaborations tend to work best.

"London Zoo" edges more towards a dub sound without as much of the extreme hardness of earlier "Bug" releases, and vocals take more of a center stage role. Also different is how melodic and more expressive the vocals by the singer/MCs are, which makes for a very lively sound that must be heard to be appreciated. Still, to many this is going to sound very hard-edged and extreme. For the initiated, it's a new direction with a lot of dub layering and subtlety that could very well snag more mainstream reggae and dub fans.

"Murder We," already very popular in underground listening-circles as a single has vocalist Ricky Ranking very close to singing a mix of reggae and American R&B. While this isn't necessarily new in other contexts, it is here in a decidedly electronic environment. Ranking's vocal on the superb "Judgment" has an energy and a power that could quiet any remaining doubters and skeptics. But it's Warrior Queen who steals the show here with cuts like "Insane," and "Poison Dart," both of which can be marked as some of the more subversive cuts on the album for all the right reasons. When she raps, "What's wrong with the world? ...Has the world gone mad?," and when Ricky Ranking sings "...People killing themselves over [it]," they're both spot-on about the present state of things internationally.

The music production here is much warmer and inviting than on previous releases which could open things up more for this project of extreme electronics melded with the organic singing of authentic Jamaican and British dub and reggae vocal talent. Holding-up the UK side is the return of dub poet Roger Robinson whose wordplay is a real treasure to behold. His voice and delivery have a very powerful emotional side to them, existing comfortably within the musical environments Martin creates. Robinson's words and delivery are transcendent as always.

You have to admit, it's a good time for dubstep and hardcore dub and dancehall fans these days. These could be the outlines of the next big thing, the new punk, the new psychedelia. Get it before the final crash comes, it's good end-times (for Western capitalism anyway) music. Now, let's get Lee Perry on some sides before Babylon falls!

Kevin Martin's "The Bug" Drags Reggae into the 21st Century, Kicking and Screaming!

Who is "The Bug"? Who is this Kevin Martin? To say that Kevin Martin is a remarkable UK musician and producer who has worn many hats would be an understatement. Beginning with his Noise-Jazz combo, "God" in the late 80s, early 1990s, he cut an impressive musical-swath, even enjoying an LP produced by the legendary John Zorn. Martin has often been a favorite of Britain's edgy music periodical The Wire, a daring publication without any North American analog.

Going from God to ICE--a dub-themed project with former members of Head of David and Terminal Cheesecake--Martin kept very close to the roots of reggae, ragga, soca, dancehall, but with the addition of elements of the hard rock, techno and industrial genres.

Eventually, ICE and the related Techno Animal projects with Justin K. Broadrick (Napalm Death, Godflesh, Jesu) went in the direction of a very controversial and iconoclastic hip-hop. But all-along, there were those interesting elements of Caribbean music, especially in the decidedly psychedelic mixing usually associated with dub-reggae. Musical hybrids are one of those last routes towards innovation and the new, and it's frequently been the road to poverty. But tastes have changed dramatically in the last few years, and so have the fortunes of people like Martin, Broadrick, and even the "isolationist" Mick Harris. Dub is finally having its day.

Martin wasn't alone in his dub obsession during the 1990s, and he went as far as to compile two volumes of contemporary dub-mixing for Virgin Records under the moniker of "Macro Dub Infection," which included mixes by Tricky, Broadrick, Prince Paul, and Mick Harris of Scorn. Dub and dancehall are musical genres that never truly die, and this can be seen in the growing "dubstep" scene based in London, the worthy successor to drum-n'-bass (minimalist funk beats played at 45 RPM only hold the attention for so long).
With the demise of Techno Animal, Martin resurrected a little side-project called "The Bug," which began with a 1997 Wordsound LP with DJ Vadim titled "Tapping the Conversation," an ostensible replacement-score for Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 film "The Conversation," a meditation on surveillance culture. Unlike the recent releases, this was an ominous instrumental work of looming, monolithic and apocalyptic hip-hop. In 2003, Martin released "," an incredible collection of what can only be called a radical reworking of dub, dancehall, ragga & soca, melded with extremely dramatic and intense techno-stylings and genuine Jamaican and UK MCs.
Since that second Bug LP, Kevin Martin has been releasing an almost constant stream of singles (and compilations of them) with Jamaican and UK reggae/dancehall/dubstep MCs like Warrior Queen, Mexican, Ras B, Daddy Freddy, Roger Robinson, Cutty Ranks, and even the extraordinary Toastie Taylor of UK hip-hop group New Flesh. It just gets better-and-better with every release, and it's sure to scare the neighbors (always worthwhile), if not your parents (and animals within earshot).
The sound? Imagine listening to reggae in a free-fire zone, that should make sense. The only real analogy I can make with "The Bug" and his collaborators is that this is the kind of decadent, apocalyptic music you'd expect to hear in a bar scene from something like Blade Runner (yup, like Techno Animal's "Re-entry"). It's a kind of future music that can only be heard to be believed, but you can almost hear within it those sea shanties and old pirate songs that surely kicked-off Jamaican and Caribbean musics.

On June 30th, Ninja Tune releases the new LP, "London Zoo" in the UK, and it's expected in North America either simultaneously or shortly afterwards (Ninja Tune is a Canadian-based label founded by remixers Coldcut). It ain't exactly a dub purist's dream, but it'll do in a pinch. For that, check Mick Harris's Scorn. This would have made great music for the barricades in 1968. Check the singles of The Bug, there are several already available online, and they kill. Grace Jones has given a thumbs-up on the Bug. A collaboration is in order.

Track-list:

01 Angry

02 Murder We

03 Skeng

04 Too Much Pain

05 Insane

06 Jah War

07 Fuckaz

08 You & Me

09 Freak Freak

10 Warning

11 Poison Dart

12 Judgement

06.28.2008 Postscript: The American release on CD, MP-3 (which is a degraded and compressed form of audio), and WAXXX.

Jesu's 'Pale Sketches' album (2007) review

Only available directly from the artist in a limited edition of 2,000, this is the hands-down contender for the best of the four Jesu releases for 2007. A lot of readers and fans of Jesu aren't going to like this observation, but I think it's in order: February's release of 'Conqueror' was a mixed-bag that featured some very powerful psychedelic hard rock songwriting (usually compared to early-1990s 'shoegazer rock' like My Bloody Valentine), but it fell flat overall and lacked the emotional power that one generally expects from the artist.

That being said, it's still pretty good and almost sounds very 'up' at times! It all sounds like a strange description of the music from one of the founders of Napalm Death, doesn't it? Conversely, the recent 'Lifeline' EP kills, and it's a sign of real growth. The same could be said about 'Pale Sketches.' A lot of die hard metalheads are going to say this is just another example of how Justin Broadrick lost it long ago (after Streetcleaner), that he sold-out, and that he's gone soft. Like gorehounds, religious fundamentalists, and orthodox punks, who really cares what they think anyway?

The 'shoegazer' comparisons are apt, however, as Broadrick has collaborated with Robert Hampson of Loop and Main (Hampson is the second guitar on the stunning 1992 Godflesh opus, 'Pure'). Loop was a great late-80s, early-90s throwback to droney, fuzzed-out 60s psych, and still ranks highly in the 'shoegazer' pantheon. Do yourself a favor: find Loop and give it a listen, it's the real deal. Conqueror isn't a bad album, but there are some very run-of-the-mill rock standards present on it, a very 'been-there, done-that' affair on about half of the album's songs. I didn't expect a repeat of Godflesh, or even the sometimes extraordinary Techno Animal, or ICE, but there were about four-of-eight songs that really soared. Considering what else is out there right now, that's not too bad. The artist was overdue for a straight-ahead hard rock album, and we can expect every Jesu release to be different from the last.

Granted, all of this is coming from a longtime-fan of the music of Justin K. Broadrick: I've been hooked on just about every release he's done ever since a college acquaintance loaned me his copy of 'Streetcleaner' in late-1991. I don't expect the nihilism or the crushing heaviness in these new releases, but what I do expect from Justin is that his music moves me, that he presents me with a little something that I've never heard before, and to basically do something new somewhere in the arrangements. Even the Beach Boys managed that.

'Conqueror' does manage this occasionally, yet the crowning track 'Weightless & Horizontal' could be considered one of Justin's greatest contributions to rock songwriting. To say it's an epic anthem would be an understatement, it simply destroys while it lifts the spirits, clocking-in at ten-minutes of bliss. 'Old Year' was also a great rocker on Conqueror, and has a very shimmering quality to it, and it has that incredible feeling of yearning that all great music has. That's what one usually expects from Broadrick--something deep, something epic. There just wasn't much of that on Conqueror. Little has changed in the overall sound since Godflesh, but there's a distinct lack of much dissonance with a more harmonized approach. You cannot always be angry, outraged, and crying--sometimes it has to end. What comes after nihilism?

Enter 'Pale Sketches,' which has been available for a little over two-months at this writing. Where Conqueror fails at times, Pale Sketches succeeds-in-spades: it is epic, it is moving, and it speaks volumes on the sorrow and the emotional torture of this peculiar era we're inhabiting. This was also the feeling one got from Godflesh, Techno Animal, and many of Broadrick's countless side-projects up until 2003. Even the first Jesu full-length from Hydrahead (the self-titled 'Jesu') accomplished this with an almost cathedral-like structure. Not so strangely, many of the tracks on Pale Sketches date between '2000-2007,' and Conqueror overlaps the same period. What you have here is an artist with so many sides that it's probably difficult to decide which songs belong on any given release! Considering that this is the first release in seven years from his Avalanche imprint, Pale Sketches ranks as a very special release for Justin in every respect, even with its dismissive title. In many ways, it's exactly what I've wanted to hear for several years from him.

If I would compare the music on Pale Sketches to a particular band, it would be Joy Division. There's a great balance of heaviness, electronics, heavy sound-processing, and that strange tone of sorrow and joy coexisting together. That aesthetic is exactly what makes the music of Broadrick so timeless and so powerful when he's at his best. Songs like 'Dummy' take elements of the very best of UK post-punk with an injection of elements of the present. The result is the future. 'Supple Hope' could have almost been a Godflesh song, except that most of the arrangement focuses on some beautifully-layered electronics and some truly inspired vocals. Guitar is backgrounded, and there is more than a hint of an Eno and krautrock influence in the sounds and arrangements (with a dash of 'Frippertronics' ala' James Plotkin of that other grindcore band Old).

Maybe Justin Broadrick had tired of the crushing sound and nihilism of Godflesh by 2001 (I was also ready for something new), but the sorrow remains fully-intact in all his releases in 2007. The changes in his sound are a move towards the melodic and the poppy. To many old fans, this is sacrilege, and Broadrick has expressed the feeling that he's not going to miss them. Considering many of them are fixated on Streetcleaner, I'd have to agree. Even so, the excitement of creativity, curiosity, and discovery have also carried-over from the years predating Jesu. Half of Pale Sketches comprises songs, while the other half are instrumentals. Every one of them is a classic balance of heavy rock combined with electronics just waiting to be discovered by the curious. Contrary to most of the reviews--and even comments from Broadrick himself--this is significantly more psychedelic than Conqueror.

This miscellany of tracks (as most releases by Jesu are) is the real 'Conqueror,' and hardly a collection of 'Pale Sketches.' It's another great observation that life is a strange combination of misery and joy, beauty and ugliness. That describes the music of Justin K. Broadrick in every respect, especially in his current incarnations. Making those two elements harmonize is what makes some of his work very inspired, even genius. This man has grown, showing us emotional vistas that we never thought possible through his music. The occasional misfire will be well worth it.

Techno Animal's 'Re-entry' (1995): The Best Album of the 1990s?

There are albums that impact the fabric of popular music in a way that is lasting, and this was one of them. Nobody ever caught on to JK Flesh's (Justin Broadrick of Napalm Death, Godflesh & Jesu) and KMart's (Kevin Martin, GOD, ICE) albums, and they were missing-out. After hearing their first CD, "Ghosts" (1991), I was terrified!

There are no words for the sonic assault they had on that album, it was very sample-based, and very industrial-sounding (like Throbbing Gristle or Faust). Re-entry has the same feeling that "Bitches Brew" gave me on that first listen--there was a newness that felt like they were looking into the future, and it was exciting. There is a strange trippy utopianism to the electric period of Miles, but Re-entry is dystopian and menacing. Yet, there are aspects of Techno Animal's oeuvre that can even sound elegiac and dreamy, a kind of "flowers in the ruins" quality that's beggars description. Most of the material was done with samplers and computers and is best described as electro-acoustic studio compositions with some live elements thrown-in.

Most of Re-entry has a kind of "noirish"quality that would fit well into the world of Blade Runner. Broadrick and Martin's music has a strange way of making the end of everything seem beautiful and poetic, like the writings of Thomas Pynchon. For this reason, it is very spiritual in an existentialist sense, a kind of musical raging against the abyss that I enjoy. Re-entry has some excellent hip-hop beats and electronics over an ambient soundscape, but you could imagine this stuff blaring over the destruction of Baghdad too. It has the quality of music one would imagine the imperial courts of the Mandarins or the Rajahs had. It's very psychedelic--like a fever dream--a haze of intoxication, often conveying a sense of the pastoral and the arboreal. Some tracks miss-the-mark, but it's an amazing 2+ hours for trainspotters and music addicts. You don't need drugs here, this music is drugs. But if you ever really want to scare-the-shit out of rap fans who play their bass too loud on their rigs, play this very-very loudly around them. The white-noise and subharmonic-frequencies alone will force them leave its proximity.

In the spirit of fairness, I have to mention the other CD of 1995 that is its coequal--Scorn's "Gyral" (Mick Harris, formerly of Napalm Death), an artist who definitely influenced the creation of Re-entry. If I was to describe the Scorn of the mid-1990s, it would be a dub sound with hip-hop beats and sampled-textures (often ambient), and very dark, even Apocalyptic. That's the kind of music that seems to emanate from Birmingham, England. But Re-entry has the same approach to that electric-period Miles, and even a few players who worked with him during that the 1960s-70s. Complimenting this is the legendary Jon Hassell who created his own "4th world music" (a hybrid of electronics, free-jazz, serialism, minimalism, and more). Hassell came out of the "no wave" scene of the 1980s along with Bill Laswell and others.

It's funny how I finally got a copy of Re-entry: it came by-way of Mick Harris himself in 1999. We were trading music through the mails at the time, and Reentry was part of a trade. You couldn't find this album at the time, it just vanished in the US after 1995 just barely making its release through Caroline. Yes, Justin had given the CD to him through the mails--that's how difficult it was for me to find it. Two former members of Napalm Death owned it. I'll never sell it, never! I assume it did much better in Europe, but it wasn't a big commercial success. Again, Virgin records didn't even bother releasing it widely in America even though it was part of an ambient series that included Brian Eno, Hassell, the Orb, and many others. The Wire magazine listed Re-entry in their Top 50 albums of 1995, but musical tastes are more educated and eclectic in the UK than they are here in the US. The UK edition to the Soundtrack to "The Acid House" (an Irvine Welsh story, the author of Trainspotters) has a Techno Animal cut, while the US edition omitted it altogether! That says it all, doesn't it? Artists like Broadrick and Martin are anathema to an industry that has tried to compartmentalize music into genres, and the public also prefers this. With the advent of the Internet, it just seems inevitable that the genres will break down eventually since they're ultimately artificial, and when the original commercial and emotional reasons for them no longer exist, they'll be gone.

The invention of genres and the cult of personality have held music back for a very long time. Music itself has to be organic and ever-changing for it to survive, like life itself, its source. Music cannot stop moving, or it has already died. Like art hanging in a gallery, it has lost its edge and its dangerousness and has been tamed. Something old, something new...I want to hear Jon Hassell cutting-loose over an ambient beatscape with his trumpet some more! These guys are innovators, and they therefore defy categorization which is problematic to lazy music journalists and mainstream labels (the ones that have survived!). Techno Animal folded in early 2004 after a number of failed-attempts at capturing some kind of access to the mainstream, the most notable being their hybrid rap opus "Brotherhood of the Bomb"(Matador records, 2001), which featured heavily mutated hip-hop tracks with seasoned underground MCs. The results weren't that great and neither was the reaction.

Some cuts work, but most of it just didn't click with most rap fans and the North American tour had a very mixed-response. Ironically, the tracks that worked best were instrumentals. Yet, you have to have people like them to achieve any innovations and the music industry knows this very well. Without some form of forward movement, people begin to lose interest (too late!). With no cutting-edge artists being put out there, they start downloading Eminem and copying it to a CDr or an iPod. Or, they finally break down and start making it themselves.

Before you download that album or track, just be sure to pay artists like Justin & Kevin, they've earned that right. At least they're experiencing some success of late--Justin with Jesu and Martin with The Bug (HARD dancehall techno). Someone has to write the soundtrack to the Apocalypse. If not them, why not YOU?

Revised, 08.01.2009