El Guapo
(Copyright © 1999-2024 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )

The Phenomenon of Renewal (1998), 6/10
The Geography of Dissolution (2000), 6.5/10
Super System (2002), 7/10
Fake French (2003), 4/10
Supersystem: Always Never Again (2005), 5.5/10
Supersystem: A Million Microphones (2006), 6.5/10
Links:

(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)

Washington-based post-rock combo El Guapo (formed by Rafael Cohen on guitar and Justin Moyer on drums and bass) continues the avant-jazz-hardcore tradition of greatly under-rated 1980s bands such as Saccharine Trust and Universal Congress. El Guapo debuted with the six-song EP The Burden of History (Resin, 1997), followed by the album The Phenomenon of Renewal (Resin, 1998) and the live album The Geography of Dissolution (Mud Memory, 2000). The latter adds Peter Cafarella on keyboards and accordion, while Cohen doubles on oboe.

Super System (Dischord, 2002) added doses of grotesque electronica to the recipe. The short, quirky songs become even more unpredictable and undefinable. The demented jingle-like singalong of My Bird Sings belongs to the repertory of the Residents. The dadaistic synth-pop litany Inevitability is their equivalent of Trio's Da Da Da, and the pulsating reverbed Rumbledream is their equivalent of Suicide's neurotic threnodies. The gothic ambience of As In (syncopated beat, ominous electronic drones, derelict singing) flows into Buildables, almost a tribute to gothic dance-pop of the 1980s. At the other end of the spectrum, there are echoes of cabaret skits in The Kid Is Building Something and especially in the jazzy Balkan-tinged Disappointment Spelled With V. The most abstract moments come with the industrial nightmare that swallows the carillon of Scientific Instruments and the six-minute prog-rock and ambient fantasia Being Boulevards. The album is also littered with a handful of post-Brian Eno-esque vignettes. At their best, they bridge German prog-rock of the 1970s, the no-wave of the 1980s and the post-rock of the 1990s.

Each of the three previous albums introduced something completely new, but this one merely simplifies the idea behind the third album's electronic pop, to the point that El Guapo occasionally sounds like a badly disfigured New Order mix. The 1980s revival that is taking the USA by storm is more like a disease than a blessing. Except for the grotesque I Don't Care, there isn't a second on this album that can be defined "original". Under the shadows of Kraftwerk and Devo, Just Don't Know, Ocean and Sky, Pick it Up , and Underground commend as much respect as a Duran Duran cover (or original).

El Guapo reformed with drummer Josh Blair of Orthrelm and three vocalists (keyboardist Pete Cafarella, guitarist Rafael Coen and bassist Justin Destroyer) and changed name to Supersystem. The new quartet debuted on Always Never Again (Touch & Go, 2005), a varied collection that harked back to the age of disco-punk but with an emphasis on Blair's jaunty polyrhythms (Born into the World). Supersystem's second album, A Million Microphones (Touch & Go, 2006), is a more mature work that focuses not on the dance element but on the un-dance element, i.e. on the deconstruction of the cliches of dance music, possibly the most erudite and hip-shaking such attempt since the Pop Group of the 1970s. The three vocalists take turns at spitting words into the faulty rhythmic clockwork. Cafarella's synthesizer adds a Pere Ubu-esque feeling to the arrangements. But the driving force of the music is Blair's irregular rhythms, that frequently define the very definition of "rhythm", as they keep shifting in a neurotic manner.
The syncopated synth-pop with pseudo-rap declamation of Not The Concept and the naive melody, the whirling guitar and ugly techno beat of The Lake are the appetizers. Prophets has the light/ironic quality of a commercial jingle, while The City (semi-pop melody, semi-Latin beat) exudes the atmosphere of a cabaret.
The main meal comes with Eagles Fleeing Eyries, evoking the distorted-mirror experience of a B52's retro-dance hit though layered rhythmic effects while disorienting with the delicate notes of a harp. However, the power of Supersystem's method is better displayed by the tortured psychodrama of Earth Body Air, in particular by its elaborate vocal and electronic counterpoint (over looping polyrhythms that update Talking Heads' futurist world beat). The "singing" in Joy is basically a dialogue between a voice and its echo, while the instrumental part piles up African beat, acid keyboards and twangy Middle-Eastern guitar.
The album closes with the barbershop harmonies of Revolution Summer, embellished only by a syncopated robotic beat and timid synthesizer and piano noises. With the exception of White Light White Light (punk-ish rigmarole, harsh riffs and rocking rhythm), the songs are hardly knock-out punches. It is their incoherent and apparently cacophonous development that grants them a malign status.

What is unique about this music database