Bark Psychosis: Independency

BARK PSYCHOSIS: INDEPENDENCY (1989-1992; 1994)

1) I Know; 2) Nothing Feels; 3) All Different Things; 4) By Blow; 5) Manman; 6) Blood Rush; 7) Tooled Up; 8) Scum.

For the serious patient of Bark Psychosis, this is an indispensable addition to the two full LPs. In­dependency is a compilation, released in 1994 (the same year as Hex) and collecting, in roughly chronological order, most of the stuff from their several singles and EPs from 1989 to 1992, altogether more than an hour of post-rock bliss in a state of growth — starting off with the early «naïve» singles (that's what Sutton called them himself) and culminating in the 21-minute ʽScumʼ, the track that literally put Bark Psychosis on the map and paved the ground for the less monu­mental, but even more elaborate compositions of Hex.

Indeed, the band's first single often feels as if they were just so excited with the possibility to lay down some trippy sounds in a professional studio — ʽAll Different Thingsʼ is really all about the miracle of phased guitar effects, looped and echoed off each other during the fussy free-form coda, and ʽBy Blowʼ, true to its name, explores the idea of how cool it can be when a soft, smooth, lulling New Age soundscape is gradually transformed into a messy nightmare "by blow" of the reverberating power chord, gradually gaining in intensity and frequency, until the Talk Talk-ish air is ripped apart by almost John Zorn-ian sound bombers. But it doesn't sound parti­cularly professional or grappling — in fact, Sutton later admitted that they distorted the tapes in the process and didn't even notice it until it was too late. (Not that you'd ever guess that the wobbly sound of the track came by accident, rather than artistic decision).

Pending their second single (ʽNothing Feelsʼ / ʽI Knowʼ, for some reason placed here before the first one), the really interesting stuff starts with the Manman EP — the heavily rhythmic title track shows a clear techno influence, but is still imbued with Sutton's usual melancholy and some astral psychedelics: the guitar-dominated parts are similar to The Cure, but then they get swapped for keyboards, and it sounds like somebody wanted to record a completely digital track, but ended up recording the synthesizer parts manually — in other words, an oddly «homebrewn» version of whatever the real pros in the techno genre were doing, but also somewhat endearing because of that factor. The most curious track of the three, though, is ʽTooled Upʼ — also rhythmic, funky, and it seems as if they sampled the bassline from Talking Heads' ʽCrosseyed And Painlessʼ for this! Hardly a coincidence, even if there is hardly anything else in common between Bark Psy­chosis and Talking Heads.

As for ʽScumʼ, this is indeed like a 20-minute preview of whatever Hex would soon be, and as such, somewhat superfluous — there is no serious reason for it to go over 20 minutes. In fact, there would be no serious reason for any Bark Psychosis track to go over 20 minutes, unless you accept that the nature of their music is totally static (which is not true) and you just have to treat it as background musical incense. But historically, one can easily see how this was a sort of mile­stone for «post-rock»: the freedom of a psychedelic jam combined with the vague influence of the classical symphonic form and, in the case of Sutton, also with a strong jazz vibe. There's a little bit of everything in this track, and they make an adorable job of reducing it all to Nothing (with a capital N, which means respect, if not adulation).

Altogether, this is not a particularly tremendous line of evolution — one would hope for one of those early Napalm Death covers, but no dice! — but it does reveal several somewhat different incarnations of the band before they settle into their classic image, and, most importantly, there is absolutely no telling whether any of these tracks might strike a hidden chord in you: I'd say there's a big chance of a random music lover connecting with at least one, which sort of justifies paying one buck for this compilation if you happen to find it for such a price. But if you're one of those rare Suttonites who think that Bark Psychosis combined breathtaking beauty and deep intel­lectualism like no other Nineties' band, Independency is the required third shard to complete the Holy Grail of Proto-Post-Rock.

PS. And yes, that's not a bootleg cover - apparently, the band's name was in Cyrillic letters on the cover of the original compilation. It does look suspiciously like a Russian bootleg: I wonder if the band members had access to any of those, or were they simply influenced so much by Paul McCartney's so-called Choba B CCCP?

Bark Psychosis: Codename Dustsucker

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.

Bark Psychosis: Hex

BARK PSYCHOSIS: HEX (1994)

1) The Loom; 2) A Street Scene; 3) Absent Friend; 4) Big Shot; 5) Eyes & Smiles; 6) Fingerspit; 7) Pendulum Man.

Even if I hated this record and this band, it would still be worth reviewing for two things alone. First, Bark Psychosis were originally formed in 1986 as — get this — a Napalm Death cover band. Second, eight years later, when their full-length debut finally came out, their music was dubbed «post-rock» in Mojo magazine, and this is where the term, now much more commonly associated with better known acts such as GY!BE and Sigur Rós, allegedly had its true begin­nings. To go from «grindcore» to «post-rock» in less than a decade, and not for any sort of com­mercial or fashionist decision, but simply obeying the tug of one's heart — well, this is definitely something that merits respect.

The band itself was largely the brainchild of Graham Sutton, a smart and sensitive kid from Hackney, and Hex was far from his first offering to the world — before that, the band had pro­duced several singles and EPs, including the 21-minute long track ʽScumʼ, which gained apprai­sal in 1992: this really was their first attempt at a musical «post-rock manifesto» of sorts, and the ideas invested in that track found further development in Hex, a collection of lengthy, mean­dering, and sometimes almost purringly soft... songs? jams? textures? soundscapes? whatever. «Post-rock» was originally defined as «non-rock music played using rock instrumentation», but that is a vague definition — and although, in retrospect, the roots of «post-rock» are usually seen in the classic albums of Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis really sound nothing like Mark Hollis and the gang. They sound closer to Hollis and the gang than to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, that is for sure. But not close enough.

The big reason why an album like Hex is revered in certain critical circles, yet has never mana­ged to become as popular as those Talk Talk records, is most probably because it is unassuming. Listening to Spirit Of Eden, you get a very clear sense of being involved in something grand, like the early stages of some terraforming process — the compositions are wholesome, slowly unveiling before your eyes and aspiring to tremendous seriousness (you could argue whether or not they actually get where they're going, but Mark Hollis' stature as a musical prophet remains undiminished by these arguments). Sutton, on the other hand, has no such aspirations: his music is almost always subdued, its ambience is never betrayed by crescendos or climaxes, and if the listener needs to be shaken up a little, well, the harshest that Hex can get is by means of some crunchy jolt from a distorted jazzy bassline — quite a long distance, isn't it, from your everyday Napalm Death standards?

In all, the musical genre that Hex comes closest to, outside of «rock», is arguably lounge jazz — with slight touches of R&B, chamber/dream pop, and New Age. It is one of those works-better-at-night records that requires getting into a certain lazy, hazy, dreamy mood which can carry you away; anything other than that and most of the compositions will look extremely boring, since, you know, this is not Talk Talk; this is a record that focuses on abstract beauty without getting too emotional or overworked about it. «Musical hooks» do not exist in this place — all hints at sharpness of sound have been meticulously eradicated, replaced by smoothness and fluidity that work at a strictly subconscious level, provided they work at all. And yet, at the same time this is not just a collection of trance-inducing grooves: as a rule, these are multi-part, dynamic compo­sitions that know how to shift melodies and tempos. For instance, ʽThe Loomʼ begins as a roman­tic piano-and-strings ballad, then adds polyrhythmic percussion, then adds ambient keyboards, then drops pianos and strings, then adds a noisy coda that may or may not resemble the actual sounds produced by a power loom. ʽA Street Sceneʼ begins like a soft jazz piece with energetic percussion, adult con­temporary synths in the background and noisy feedback in the middle ground — but it ends almost without any percussion at all (just a few cymbal clicks), as a mini­malistic guitar piece with some keyboard ruffles around the edges. And this is totally typical of the rest of the album as well.

I must confess to a primitive sort of reaction: everything on Hex sounds «tepid» to me, too much going on for me to treat it as a quintessential ambient record, but way too little to get me genuine­ly involved and moved. Had Sutton and his backing band displayed just a tad less creativity, we could all just agree that they tried to make a generic smooth jazz album with guitars and electro­nics, and the results were predictably yawn-inducing. But the internal dynamics of the composi­tions is so utterly undeniable that I almost feel bad for not «feeling» this all the way through; the concept of the album, in fact, sounds much more exciting on paper than when you listen to this stuff in real time. In all, this is tons more creative than Sade, but if you were to make a desert island choice, you'd have to go along with ʽSmooth Operatorʼ, because Hex is just no soundtrack for survival on a desert island.

Nevertheless, judging from a sheerly intellectual side, the record is an undeniable thumbs up all the way through — in fact, if you have not developed sufficient respect for it by the third listen, I would advise coming back to it over and over again, just because it is so full of nuances. I mean, who knows, it might actually be one of the biggest musical riddles of the decade — in terms of how many different genres it borrows from and in terms of the final meaning of this synthesis. It is rock, it is prog, it is jazz, it is ambient, and it is also none of these, so what is it? And what exactly could, or should, it trigger in our minds once the spell finally begins to work? Count me genuinely befuddled, and I usually give out thumbs up when I'm befuddled, just to be on the safe side. Unless I prefer to abstain, but that usually happens with records that defy the notion of melody, whereas Bark Psychosis have the highest respect for melody.