New Music From Corsano & Orcutt, Eartaker
Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt
Brace Up!
(Palilalia)
After releasing three live albums, the ecstatically explosive drums/guitar duo of Chris Corsano and Bill Orcutt has released its first studio album, Brace Up!
And while live albums can sometimes harness a wild energy and risk-taking—operating outside the safety net of a studio environment, without the luxury of do-overs—of course that doesn’t mean that studio recordings are by default more tame than their live counterparts.
Actually, Brace Up! sounds pretty much like a live album, going from its go-for-broke immediacy, but it benefits from being cleanly recorded, so that each detail has the opportunity to stand out boldly.
Corsano has performed with a wide variety of artists including Björk and saxophonist Evan Parker and is a member of the furious trio Rangda with Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls) and Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance). Orcutt was in the riotous, noisy group Harry Pussy in the ‘90s before concentrating on a feral and unique improvisational approach on the acoustic guitar.
With Corsano, Orcutt plays the electric guitar, at times sounding like twisted blues, perhaps appealing to fans of Zoot Horn Rollo or Sonny Sharrock.
Corsano’s pounding is intimidating, with constant crests and waves of vigor, and Orcutt matches that strength level, as if the two were entangled wrestlers on fire, rolling around frantically.
On “She Punched a Hole in the Moon for Me,” Orcutt uses droning pedal notes to vaguely resemble an Indian raga, and sounding like he’s an animal possessed by a demon, Orcutt also sometimes vocalizes, seemingly compelled to howl along melodically.
Brace Up! has no intention to be subtle; like a fully opened firehose, it’s a constant release and sonic barrage with little patience for build-up periods. The frenzied rustling of Brace Up! is perhaps like the aural equivalent of two cocaine-fueled burglars carelessly rifling through a victim’s house.
Eartaker
Harmonics
(Bedouin)
In the horror cosmos of writer H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu Mythos, there are two possible fates for humans: either you die—probably in a terrible, painful way—or you go insane, when offered a glimpse of the universe’s soul-crushing indifference and incomprehensible complexity beyond your sheltered life.
The dark atmospheric doom-haze of the Japanese trio Eartaker could very well serve as some kind of arcane incantation in that world, particularly with the low, guttural, throaty doom-metal vocals of Diesuck.
Joining him are the producer Goth-Trad and the noise/musique concrète artist Masayuki Imanishi on the full-length album Harmonics, which paints a picture of a shadowy, desolate world.
Harmonics can be broken down into its elements—synthetic buzzes on “Iron Trivet,” disorienting high-frequency tones and industrial beats on “Nue”—but there are also considerations about intensity and overall impact: not just volume or cluttered disorder, but some kind of artistry at work to harness these dark powers.
On “A Lady Who Experienced Necromancy,” the intentional clipping flaw on its beats is particularly disturbing to anyone who’s done sound engineering, amid the sounds of squeaky machinery and bursts of noise-sheets.
“Killing Stone” could be a scene involving the death throes of a hoarse Cookie Monster, strapped to a conveyor belt in a factory with sparks flying everywhere, and “Stupa” offers vocal gibberish and the unsettling, stuttering sound of what sounds like a car trying to turn over.
When in such drone/doom/noise territory, how would Cthulhu gauge its quality? Having a song that could kill someone might be impressive, but a more feasible goal might be having a song that could drive someone to insanity.
This writer thinks that Harmonics could have gone further in both the intensity and insanity departments, although its finest track comes at the very end; the squiggle sounds and sustained tones of “Black Mound” work well, lurching forth as the sound of gradual mental deterioration.