Departing from the sublime anthemic rock of their eponymous debut, Bremen Town Musicians cut loose into stretchy, less certain territories with their follow-up release, Marijuana Girl. Using group improvisation as the starting point they’ve pulled off a beguiling blend of avant space-pop.
The amorphous character of this outing is sometimes suggestive of the darkly turbulent cavities between the songs on Bowie’s Outside (which were the product of studio improvs themselves).
Vocalist Cary Moss’s guttural rasp oozes menace on the dense, oppressive atmospheres of 13 Thousand Men, eventually dissolving into paranoiac yammer on the Can-like I Wouldn’t Join A Club That Would Have Me As A Member.
Perhaps the high point of the album can be found on the the magnificently saturnine Atomic Wheel. The white-hot slivers of creepy, shivery guitar never fail to ignite although the trippy waltz of the genuinely divine Sweet could seduce the radio waves given half the chance.
Groove-based Improvisation and free-association vocals can be notoriously difficult to carry off; it’s always a high-wire walk between percipient know-how and verbose noodling. Though there are a couple of lapses in concentration here and there (the title track perhaps being the guilty party here), but the overall impression is that of a band pushing away from the comfort zone into something altogether more ambiguous. Thankfully they pull it off with great assurance and make the whole thing rather listenable into the bargain.
-Sid Smith
Track Listing:
1.Sweet
2.13 Thousand Men
3.I Wouldn't Join A Club That Would Have Me As Member
4.Atomic Whell
5.Marijuana Girl
6.Waitng For The Band
7.Grey Speckled Bird
8.Fashion Show
Drums & Percussion: Art Goethals
Guitar: Bill Hibbets
Voices: Cary Moss
Bass: Matt Pearson
Guitar & Guitar Synth: Fred Raimondi
Recorded during 2003 rehearsals at The Poolhouse
Produced by Bill Hibbets
Producers's note:
These improvastional performances were never intended for anything other than a tool for the band to write songs. While compiling these recordings I found that some of them warranted "song treatment", to which I edited and triggered different samples to go along with what we played. Commonly known as cheatting. I tried to keep the original discovery of new music in the moment warts and all. I think I achieved this but sometimes a song reared it's pompus little head. I hate when that happens.
B.H.
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