Chromosome Damage Too

HELIOS CREED - Busting Through the Van Allen Belt

I often picture Helios Creed in a cavernous, underground laboratory wearing a lab coat while he conducts his experiments with assorted varieties of alien technology-- of course, these technologies include drugs not available from Rudy on the street corner. Nah, I'm talkin' extreme chemical alterations of the brain that allow him to tap into, and in fact, become one with his vast arsenal of gadgetry. I only mention this because unlike so many others that rely so heavily on machines, Creed never sounds like anything less/more than flesh and blood. For example, even though synthetic percussion is employed for the first half of this album-- quite cheapo thud at that-- it never sounds like loops... it's more like listening to someone pounding away with their fists on the defenseless drum pads. Helios likes to show them hapless contraptions who's boss.

The second half is live tracks recorded from Austin, Texas to San Francisco to Switzerland with "real" musicians. Longtime collaborators Z Sylver (keys) and Paul Della Pelle (drums) show up for three cuts and the final two tracks feature the Weiss brothers, Andrew (bass, also of Ween/ex-Rollins Band) and Jon (drums). Most interesting of all is Nik Turner lending some of his patented sax-bleating to "Hyperventilation," along with fellow past and present members of Hawkwind-- Del Dettmar (synth), Len Del Rio (keys), Grenas (guitar) and Paul Fox (bass). Despite the various confederates, this LP is a personal favorite for its cohesiveness-- it's the first of his solo efforts to dive head-first back into the science-fictionalized goop Chrome left unfinished.

I remember being so enamored of this here disc upon its release in 1994, that I went out and rented (at an absolutely cut-throat price) a then state-of-thee-art pedal board (a Roland I believe) in a pathetic attempt to add some extra-kookiness to my Residents rip-off hobby band. We'd been fucking around with chipmunk vocals and the like, so it seemed "proper" to have ridiculously over-treated geetar sounds to add to the worthless racket we'd been making. Unfortunately, even though I'd recent graduated from Ron Asheton Circa First Stooges Longplayer Rudimentary Axe Skills 101, I still sounded like a guy screwing around with noises he didn't understand. In short, the machine was playing ME. Helios Creed, on the other hand, never suffers from that problem.

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ROSCOE MITCHELL - Sound

I've had this 'un earmarked for at least 4-5 months. In fact, my original vision for SLN was a noise/free jazz-oriented monster with text every bit as impenetrable as the skronk offered as ritual sacrifice. Somewhere along the way, I compromised (heavily). Not sure why, but most likely it was the ominous specter of writing on a near-daily schedule about artists whose collective works are this emotionally and physically draining-- not good for my mental health... or yours, for that matter. Tackling a cultural watermark like "Sound" is akin to distilling the essence of "Human, All Too Human" into a few crass paragraphs-- yes, I'm aware that sounds more pretentious than a John Cage worshiper on peyote with five people giving him/her their undivided attention, but I couldn't think of a more down-to-earth analogy... my apologies. Awright, fuck it, I'm gonna plow forward even though I find this one of the more daunting tasks I've undertaken here.

Then again, who really has tapped into the vein of free jazz using mere words? Lester Bangs at his Romilar D-guzzlin' best? Nah, he tended to spend as much time rambling on about himself-- as entertaining as he was-- as the music itself. The academically-inclined yo-yo's at Down Beat? Need I even answer that? Truth is, verbiage will never accurately convey the organized chaos constructed by Roscoe Mitchell, Alto Saxman Extraordanaire, and his soon-to-be fellow members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago (Lester Bowie, Maurice McIntyre, Malachi Favors, Alvin Fielder and Lester Lashley). This is music so fulla paradoxes you'll soon find yer head swimming (and plenty o' other body parts as well)-- beautiful/hideous, playful/terrifying, harmonious/dissonant... I could list 'em for pages (but I won't). Instead, here's a quickie lowdown on two tracks (there's only five, two of which are alternate takes):

"Sound 1," is a shining example of what can happen when musicians with extra-sensory chemistry and boundless creativity are unshackled from all known conventional thought. Beginning with some atonal, yet thematic shrieks from Mitchell and Bowie (tenor sax), this 27 minute epic quickly shifts to a less serious tone with Lashley's entrance: Realizing that trombones create a damn good fart noise, he lingers in infantile territory for a while before being joined in the fun by Mitchell and Bowie. The result is the kinda bizarre interplay you'd tend to associate with Carl Stalling-- particularly if he was scoring a scene where Wile E. goes SPLAT!! And then there's Lester Lashley's cello "playing." The Godz had to've been spinning this sucker day 'n' night, as they are the only artists I can think of who mauled a bowed instrument quite like Les... you shouldn't feel ashamed if you at first mistake it for a cat being tortured.

"The Little Suite," also sounds a lot like cartoon music-- a rollicking, ever-morphing piece resembling a joyous, inside joke-filled conversation between cello, recorder, flugelhorn and um... gourds. When you start to believe you've wrapped your head around what they've set out to accomplish... you're wrong. Ringing bells punctuating the dialog unexpectedly give way to a cacophony of squawking saxes that'd make Keiji Haino wince. Frank "Money in the Bank" Zappa borrowed more'n a few of the ideas featured here (check out "Studio Tan" sometime).

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