Laddio Bolocko
(Copyright © 2006 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )

Strange Warmings (1997) , 7.5/10
Psychic Paramount: Gamelan Into The Mink Supernatural (2005), 7/10
Psychic Paramount: II (2011), 6.5/10
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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)

Laddio Bolocko were formed in 1996 in New York with Drew St.Ivany on guitar, Ben Armstrong on bass, Marcus DeGrazia on saxophone, and Blake Fleming (ex Dazzling Killmen) on drums.

They mixed the neurotic introspection of post-rock and the psychotic attack of hardcore on Strange Warmings (Hungarian, 1997), with the addition of free-jazz and acid-rock improvisation. Goat lips sets the tone with a crescendo of Glenn Branca-esque minimalist repetition of coarse riffs that turn into shrill cacophonous beeps. The eleven-minute Nurser is a multi-part jam: five minutes in a jungle of burning distortion and industrial bangs, a vortex of warped drones, and an apocalyptic bacchanal in which all instruments pile up to add noise to noise. The twelve-minute Dangler is brainy like a piece by This Heat or Can, but quickly descends into demented sax-dominated noise-jazz and ends in a ghostly wind of distortion. The 16-minute Y Toros is a tidal wave of symphonic chords that build a psychedelic trance. There is also a 14-minute "hidden track" of spoken word over chaotic jamming. As structures explodes and implodes, the listener is taken on a rollercoaster of stylistic mirages.

The soundscape got blurred on two five-song EPs that abandoned the frenzy of the debut album to concentrate on textural explorations in sets of shorter pieces. In Real Time (1998) runs the gamut from Beatrice the Coyote, vibrant prog-rock in the vein of latter-day King Crimson, to Laddio's Money, a Pere Ubu-esque dance. The demonic ten-minute The Going Gong is a bit confused, an ebb and flow of energy and style. The seven-minute In Search of Bolocko sinks in a somnolent psychedelic jazz hypnosis that crosses Faust and Charalambides. As If By Remote (1999) delivers a gem of jazzy hallucination like As If by Remote, the emotional impressionism of Karl, and the visceral noise The Outro.

The double-cd album The Life & Times Of (No Quarter, 2005) collects the album and the two EPs.

Blake Fleming (drums) and Marcus Degrazia (organs, keyboards, saxophone, flute) formed Electric Turn To Me with German vocalist Silke. They debuted with the EPs Clouds Move So Fast (No Quarter, 2003) and Electric Turn To Me (No Quarter, 2003).

After Laddio Bolocko split, bassist Ben Armstrong and guitarist Drew StIvany formed Psychic Paramount with drummer Jeff Conaway. They de facto continued the mission of Laddio Bolocko on Gamelan Into The Mink Supernatural (No Quarter, 2005), but adding an almost metal intensity. The overture, Megatherion, is a tidal wave of apocalyptic drumming and jarring guitar distortions. The seven-minute Para5 hurls forward at manic speed and then intones hyper-Jimi Hendrix-ian hymn amid absolute rhythmic chaos. A rational melodic riff finally rises above the noise like King Kong advancing through the ruins. The peak of violence is actually the frenzied and hysterical maelstrom of Echoh Air , a concentrate of Blue Cheer, MC5 and the wildest free-jazz (including a tour de force by drummer Jeff Conaway). A very different idea of music permeates the nine-minute cinematic X-Visitations, sideral drones and effects that coalesces in what sounds like a spacecraft's turbulent takeoff before the guitar's fibrillating raga bestows a transcendent fervor on the chaos. Suddenly the ten-minute Gamelan Into The Mink Supernatural transforms the cosmic theme into an alien pulsation that builds up to become a full-fledged minimalist concerto. This grows steadily to become an interstellar gamelan orgy and to accelerate into a propulsive supernova pow-wow only to end abruptly. The double-CD Origins and Primitives (2007) collected old material recorded over the years by St.Ivany.

Psychic Paramount's II (No Quarter, 2011) is a somewhat brainier work than their first album. Intro/SP immediately announces a more sophisticated post-rock Don Caballero-ish structure with a mechanical syncopated beat that creates alienation rather than transcendence. This segues into the celestial drone of the nine-minute DDB that soars into a majestic fireball of manic drumming and distorted guitars. However, this too decays into a more intellectual debate among the instruments. guitars. The protagonist of RW is the intricate and repetitive rhythm, not the incendiary guitar distortions. Even the deafening cyclopic wall of sound of N6 has to pause and think, and then it mutates into a sort of helicopter flapping. The one moment of elastic propulsive jamming is Isolated, the closest thing to the spontaneous freakouts of the first album, but, again, a bit closer in spirit to free-jazz than to post-rock.

(Copyright © 2006 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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