BARK PSYCHOSIS: CODENAME: DUSTSUCKER (2004)
1) From What Is Said To When
It's Read; 2) The Black Meat; 3) Miss Abuse; 4) 400 Winters; 5) Dr. Innocuous /
Retarded; 6) Burning The City; 7) Inqb8tr; 8) Shapeshifting; 9) Rose.
Although Graham Sutton has always been the
hands, brains, guts, and sprites behind Bark Psychosis, «the band» and «the
man» are not complete synonyms. Soon after the release of Hex and a companion EP (Blue),
the band was dissolved, and Sutton moved on to other things for which the name «Bark
Psychosis» was deemed inappropriate (such as the drum-and-bass project Boymerang
with former B.P. member Daniel Gish, or the experimental combo .O.rang, where
he worked with several of the former members of Talk Talk). However, beginning
in approximately 1999, Sutton once again started recording music «Bark
Psychosis-style» — realizing, perhaps, that this sort of abstract atmospheric soundscapes
came to him more natural than anything else. Or maybe he just wanted another
change, and why not a nostalgic one?
In any case, Codename: Dustsucker (I omit the three slashes that come with the
title because they're ugly), named after Sutton's own studio called DustSucker
Sound, does pick up more or less from the same spot where Hex left off, or, rather, from the same wispy cloud where Hex left off, because any memories of
that album are just bound to be very, very hazy. And when it comes to haziness,
Dustsucker does not disappoint,
either: any attempt to «lay a finger» on even one of these tracks has been
futile for me. Arranging this album on the shelves of one's brain is a little like
trying to cut through jelly — it's all there, and it might even be quite tasty,
but good luck dissecting it and trying to differentiate between different
parts.
Technically, the album reflects Sutton's
musical education over the previous decade, and its use of electronics and
sampling makes it «modern» enough, I suppose, to make it at least palatable, if
not necessarily attractive, to all those normally skeptical of «artistic
comebacks» by people whose association with the previous decade had already
destroyed their credibility in this one. But the truth of the matter is, Sutton
seems much less concerned with following trends and proving his «relevance» to
anybody than he is with simply pursuing his elusive, twisted muse. Just like Hex, this record, too, is destined for
critical respect rather than popularity — in another attempt to create an
emotional masterpiece, Sutton has instead created an intellectual conundrum that
some will hate, a few will love, some will pretend to love, and a few more —
like yours truly — will simply be baffled about.
The song structures are this time, if at all
possible, even more dense and complicated, and yet at the same time there is a
distinct intuitive feeling that nothing whatsoever is really going on — that
it's all just an endless series of variations on the «wind in the willows»
theme. For instance, in the middle of the opening track, ʽFrom What Is Said To
When It's Readʼ, which begins as a soothing New Age-style lullaby, all
magical-enchanted droning guitars and elfish backing vocals, there comes a
jarring feedback crash, as if some explosive container has just burst open, and
suddenly everything is covered in the dusty ashes of rumbly distortion. But has
anything really changed? No. It's not
the way it sometimes happens on black-folk-metal albums — "now we're all
jangly and quiet and medieval and mystical", "and now we have
POWEEEEER!" Even the explosion is handled cautiously and quietly. You
might not even notice that it took place. But it did, and the effect is
rather... strange.
Another such «now you see it, now you don't»
type of change is observable, for instance, on ʽMiss Abuseʼ. For the first
minute and a half, it just stealthily creeps along on a diet of soft brushed
percussion, some overlapping chiming rhythms, and dark hushed half-sung,
half-spoken vocals. Then a menacing fuzzy bassline claims part of the
territory, striking up some suspense. Then, after a brief, somewhat free-form,
interlude, we seem to return to the
same basic melodies, but a grumbly electronic pulse has set in, and for a few
more minutes we have been locked in a groove that is, atmosphere-wise,
completely different: distant and winterishly cold, rather than intimate and
autumnally melancholic, where we began. Again, nothing has changed — and yet,
at the same time, everything has
changed.
This formula is not applied everywhere: sometimes
tunes are allowed to end more or less the same way they started — in
particular, on ʽInqb8trʼ, the album's longest and most monotonous track, where
this lack of change is its main weakness: as it is, it just sounds like a
rather generic exercise in smooth jazz jamming, and I have a very hard time convincing myself of its
magical powers, because, you know, repetitive percussion loops and husky vocals
per se are not quite sufficient in
these days of real heavy competition between the many magicians of smooth jazz.
But most of the time, we are indeed witnessing the process of ʽShapeshiftingʼ, as
more and more tunes undergo odd transformations — on ʽShapeshiftingʼ itself,
the funky shoegazing drone and the weepy vocals of guest star Rachel Dreyer
eventually give way to a howling, screeching, post-Neil Young-ish burst of
soloing, after which the song is stripped of melody and becomes a percussive stroll
through a jungle of creepy electronic effects. Shapeshifting? You bet.
The meaning and the implied effects of all this
are not altogether obvious to me; you will have to decide for yourself whether
the album «works» or if it is merely «strange» (and even that only if you
listen to it attentively enough — otherwise, mistaking it for a run-of-the-mill
New Age offering is easycakes). In any case, there is no reason to be
inconsistent and not give it the same
kind of respectful, but suspicious thumbs up that I already gave Hex: despite the ten years that lie between the two, there is no
feel of any such uncomfortable time gap. Nothing strange about that, either — Bark
Psychosis is one band that seems to exist completely in its own user-defined dimensions;
the concept of «time» is hardly applicable here at all. Oh, and, just for the
record, I also think this is just the kind of soundtrack that goes perfectly
well with reading A La Recherche Du Temps
Perdu; certainly Sutton and Proust have a thing or two in common.
I agree on one thing, that "INQB8TR" is more or less a waste of eight minutes, but everything else definitely "works" and hits harder than almost anything on Hex. The mood this album sets is singular: a cold, rainy view of deep, layered spaces, like the curving tunnels and overpasses in the shadows of a city's towers, or the grottos and overhanging trees around a forest stream. Listening to Dustsucker is like walking (not running and certainly not using any vehicle) through an environment that reveals engaging views around every corner (even if walking makes the corners come at a leisurely pace). In that regard, "INQB8TR" is like walking down an empty tunnel, mildly pleasant but mostly pointless. But everything else is so lush and layered that even Hex practically feels like a demo if you listen to it right after.
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