(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.
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