THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE: THIRD WORLD PYRAMID (2016)
1) Good Mourning; 2)
Government Beard; 3) Don't Get Lost; 4) Assignment Song; 5) Oh Bother; 6) Third
World Pyramid; 7) Like Describing Colors To A Blind Man On Acid; 8) Lunar Surf
Graveyard; 9) The Sun Ship.
The fourth
Brian Jonestown Massacre album in three years? What, is this 1966 all over
again or is this merely the compensatory energy-outburst result of coming
clean? I almost feel like advising Anton Newcombe to slow down, if only that
did not sound so comical when addressed to a man whose favorite musical tempo
has always been «hallucinating adagio». At least he seems to be sticking to the
short form: this new record is only a few minutes longer than Mini Album Thingy Wingy, so that both
could probably fit on a single CD if necessary — but instead of melting down
our brains with one huge close-to-eighty-minutes platter, the man has
mercifully agreed on two small platters instead.
And I don't just mean a technical gesture — the
compositions on Third World Pyramid
are conceived and executed in the exact same vein as those on Mini Album, despite having been
recorded at different sessions (and even with different guest stars). This here
is just another batch of psychedelic drones, with exactly one musical idea per
song, because, you know, having two
ideas in one song is not such a prudent thing to do — I mean, what if they
contradict each other? What if they start to fight? What if the second one
makes you forget about the first — then the first one would be, like, wasted? What if the second one is not as
good as the first? What if it spoils your concentration, or breaks the hypnotic
spell? What if somebody says, "I like how they are so influenced by
Sixties' bands, but you know, they have way too many key changes in their
songs, that's no longer influence — that's slavish plagiarism!"
So have no fear, Third World Pyramid is not going to swamp you with a dazzling
kaleidoscope of sounds and textures. Especially now that Anton seems to have
found a new muse — a young Canadian psycho-artist called Tessa Parks, specializing
in pretty much the same kind of music (dark, starry-eyed drones with
stoned-enchanted vocals at the bottom); they ended up touring together for a
while, and on this record she is handling some of the vocal duties. In between
the two, they double their efforts at retrieving the atmosphere of
soul-searching French movies from the 1950s/1960s, joining it with the essence
of mind-opening music from London's UFO club, and presenting the results for
21st century audiences who are so desperate for something new that they will
agree to revive anything old if it
helps.
Unfortunately, the results suffer from the same
problems as Mini Album. Newcombe,
now a consummate professional in this business, gets a great sound going — the
acoustic guitars, the Mellotrons, the woodwinds, the brass fanfares — but
remains unable to push this anywhere beyond simply having a «great sound». All
the core melodies are based on the same blues-rock and folk-pop chord sequences
that we have heard a million times, and it hurts particularly bad when the song
length is extended for no reason — ʽAssignment Songʼ drags on for nine minutes,
an interminable tribute to the likes of Donovan, survivable only if you get
yourself in the mood soon enough. The second half, once the vocals have died
down, is awfully mushy: no single instrumental part stands out at the expense
of others, and the result is a spineless psychedelic mess, equally polyphonous
and cacophonous. (For comparison, remember the stylistically close anthemic
coda to something like George Harrison's ʽIt's All Too Muchʼ — where all the
multiple overdubs were clustered around a very tight melodic spine that chained
you to the song's rhythm while at the same time blowing your mind with all the
kaleidoscopic effects).
On some very rare occasions, like the title
track, they increase the tempo, but it does not help much, because the bass
remains barely audible, and the truly important functions are left to the
humming electronics and the mystery ghost vocals. Slow or fast, the difference
between these tracks and their spiritual predecessors always remains the same:
Newcombe writes atmospheric mood pieces rather than songs, and that is his
stated schtick that you can take or leave. As long as I have to listen to the
record to give it a brief assessment, I can take it — but I am unsure why, ten
years or even ten days from now, I would still want to prefer this secondary,
derivative, monotonous material to a classic album by, say, The 13th Floor
Elevators, where I can get moods and
hooks and genuine original excitement.
I mean, I might be on the same wavelength with Newcombe — we both acknowledge
the psychedelic Sixties as one of the greatest eras of music and a guiding
light for one's musical tastes and hopes — but that does not imply agreeing on
how we should be dealing with this musical legacy in 2016.
Exactly one idea per song? Let me check your math:
ReplyDeleteDoo-doot-da-doot da-doot-da-doot woop-woop/Doo-doot-da-doot da-doot-da-doot woop-woop, etc..
That's one idea.
Plus:
Wa-ah-aaaaaaaah-ahh-aaaaaaaaahhhhh, Wa-ah-aaaaaaaah-ahh-aaaaaaaaahhhhh, etc..
I count two ideas. Or at least one-ish.