Desert Sessions, Vol I/Vol II

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

     In London on the weekend, I acquired the Desert Sessions
_Vol I/Vol II_ disc at the Oxford St. HMV for about 12 quid.
These are the random ramblings of Josh Homme (ex-Kyuss) and
a variety of aiders and abetters, including Brant Bjork
(ex-Kyuss), Ben Shepherd (ex-Soundgarden), John McBain
(ex-Monster Magnet), and a bunch of other people I don't
recognize.

     It's a pretty cool disc!  And it is very much a bunch of
rather relaxed dudes with powerful musical equipment jamming
away like bastards.  Fans of muchos-widdling will be disappointed,
as these guys are happy to sit there and let short, lazy guitar
lines (or single notes) sway back-and-forth whilst drums drive,
basses pulse, and keys float beneath them.

     A rock soundscape?  Ambient metal?  Well, not in the same
way that some black metal bands have sometimes verged on ambient
metal.  No what we have here dangerously close to *spacerock*.
In fact there are more than a few tunes that could drop onto old
Hawkwind or Krautrock albums without being out of place at all.
There some well-rated *blanga* is to be heard here.
     There are, to be sure, some bits that sound a lot like some
wasted bastards making discordant noise; someone foolishly allowed
Josh Homme a slide on "Robotic Lunch", which lurches along like an
Issac Asimov nightmare.  Amusing, though five-and-a-half minutes
may have been too long ...  But, generally, the rest of the disc
blasts along.  Look for the aforementioned blanga on such tracks
as "Girl Boy Tom", "Cowards Way Out" and ... well most of it.
Some over-the-top '60s organ sounds on "Monkey and the Middle",
which seems to be a nod at the Monkees' psychedelic classic,
"Porpoise Song" (covered by Trouble not so long ago).
     Besides improv musicians, I think the found those rarest of
critters--improv vocalists, who are happy to ramble away incoherently
(possibly in rhyme) about whatever deranged visions enter their
messed-up little heads.  I would swear there's a bit lifted from
Slo Burn's "July" on "Cake (Who Shit On The?)". There's some kind
of space choir on "Screamin' Eagle".  All right.

     Ah, yes--and the disc starts and ends with the scratchy,
wax-cylinder-recorded voice of some wacko (credited only as The
Reverend Bruno Ponce Jones) from c. 1903 who declaims in stirring
tones that he has "fornicated with loose women", drunk himself
"into a state of inebriation", and "acted criminally" upon his
"fellow man".  And, we are told, he is glad that he did it; amen.
     "Do not," he admonishes us, "listen to anyone!"

     Excepting this disc, of course :)

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, & Celtic
St. John's College, University of Cambridge
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/