(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Florida trio Home (Andrew Deutsch on guitar, Brad Truax on bass, Eric Morrison on keyboards plus, orginally, Sean Martin on drums)
spent most of its existence buried in the most
humble underground. After some eight self-produced cassettes (religiously
titled I, II, III, etc) recorded live, and later summarized on
Issues (Cooking Vinyl, 2001),
Home finally released
IX (Relativity, 1995) on CD.
The album (74 minutes long) contains the 24-minute suite Concepcion
as well as brief songs in the postmodern vein of Brian Eno
(Lost It, with an epic guitar riff)
or Todd Rundgren (My Friend Maurice, Reprint),
often bordering on psychedelic pop
(Make It Right, The Moving In).
A wealth of instruments helps them achieve the complex harmonies of these
unbalanced pieces.
Home fares so much better at an
abstract cacophonous industrial fanfare like Freedom Rd and at a
dejected free-form ballad like
Atomique that one wonders why waste the talent in derivative ditties.
Concepcion starts like and early Zappa operetta but then gets lost in
a documentary recording of conversations.
IX is an uneven (and self-indulgent) record that shows talent and
even genius but definitely not discipline.
The EP X (Trance Syndicate, 1996), arranged by the
Devil's Isle Orchestra (horns, strings and choir), is their most structured
and therefore accessible work, although its stylistic excursions range from
hyper-distorted garage-rock (Halloween) to Pink Floydian choral
crescendos trasecolati crescendos (Pretty Little Head).
My Passion even revives
epos, tension and drama of Van Der Graaf Generator's progressive-rock.
Underwater and Children Suite perhaps represent
the authentic mission of the band:
cycles of delicate sounds, chords in light crescendos, whispered chants in the
background.
Elf::Gulf Bore Waltz (Jetset, 1996) is the melodic/structured
alter ego of X. Home turns into Pavement and plays quirky ditties like
Seganation and Bad Vibrations.
A new peak of weirdness is achieved on Netherregions (Jetset, 1998).
Our Blue Navy and Boogeymen warp lo-fi pop until it resembles
spastic counterpoint. The lengthy Turn Away turns a country ballad into
a minimalist suite, and austere Zappa-esque prog-rock compositions such as
Industry 2000 and Another Season derail the concept of cinematic
instrumentals.
XIV (Arena Rock, 2000) is a collection of
richly-arranged madrigals of abstract, psychedelic music.
Chaos is mitigated by sonic density, but ultimately Home is focusing too
much on form rather than on content.
It's sort of like Residents without the humour.
Leels (Emperor Jones, 2002) is a project of Home's Eric Morrison with
Trey Conner and Chris Sturgeon of Meringue.
The trio's music harks back to a simpler form of roots-rock.
Happenings (that echoes Donovan's Mellow Yellow)
and Precious Time are simple ballads that echo
Grateful Dead's country shuffles and Donovan's naive folk.
The dreamy Arbor Bay, the delicate serenade Odessa, the
tender singalong Closer To Be are intimate and philosophical.
There are experiments
(the dilated country-rock with pastoral flute of Throttle,
the art-rock progressions with Allman Brothers-ian jamming of
Floridian Towel, the trippy boogie and epic chorus of
Sailing Sister)
but they too rely on simple, hummable melodies.
Sexteen (2006) is a concept on sex, featuring Sean Martin on drums.
It contains only 20 of the 50 songs that they wrote on the subject.
The project is not only amusing but also philosophically intriguing: sex
has been the topic of countless rock songs, but hardly ever faced directly.
In the post-Darwinian age, Home decided to tackle it for what it is (the
act of sexual intercourse, as opposed to the whole ritual of dating and
breaking up and cheatin and so on that surrounds it). It is not the
Cramps-style exhibition and parody of lust,
but a sort of mental cinema-verite' about sex life, that, for most young
people, is more than just pleasure. As Home says,
"Fucking is currently my favorite form of expression" (Fucking).
The music is far from monotonous: each song is pretty much a creature of its
own, with styles ranging from acid-rock to rock'n'roll to prog-rock.
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