New Music From The Skull Defeckts, Xaddaz / Rar-Rar
The Skull Defekts
The Skull Defekts
(Thrill Jockey)
“The aim was to make circular, ritualistic, monotonous rock music,” explained co-founding member Joachim Nordwall of the intense Swedish band The Skull Defekts about the band’s intention upon forming in 2005. That hasn’t changed, and the group has announced that its latest, self-titled album will be its final one.
However, internally, the outfit has experienced some major changes—notably, members Jean-Louis Huhta and Daniel Higgs (best known for his Washington, D.C. band Lungfish) stepped away while new member Mariam Wallentin joined the fold, joining Nordwall and longtime members Daniel Fagerström and Henrik Rylander.
Very broadly speaking, the band’s compelling and challenging material can be divided into two categories: percussion-driven, menacing post-punk and free-form noisy instrumental electronic drones.
The new album falls into the former category, and it’s immediately entrancing with the opening track “A Brief History of Rhythm, Dub, Life and Death” with throbbing, primitive drum beats (oddly enhanced with persistent sleigh bells) and squealing, ecstatic electronics.
It’s not quite industrial music, but it may appeal to industrial music fans; it’s perhaps like a wild, sinister, bizarro-world rendition of Faust’s “It’s a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl” performed by latter-day Swans.
“Clean Mind” is a driving, unflinching song with an urgent, pounding rhythm section and spoken/sung vocals, and its wordless chorus sections offer a release with erupting rock-guitar riffage. An ominous, formal yet sensual tone is adopted on the 9-minute “Slow Storm,” with echoing and stabbing guitar parts and Wallentin patiently reciting a sequence of individual words like “lips”, “bliss”, “ignorance”, “sadness” and “undress”. The recitation has a whiff of heavy-handed, somewhat pretentious performance art for this critic, who wonders if the concepts could have been conveyed with better-crafted lyrics.
However, the album ends strongly, with “A Message from The Skull Defekts” being a noteworthy highlight and a potent unstoppable sonic juggernaut, like a rocket-engine-powered bulldozer heading to the band’s triumphantly devastating brick-wall finish line.
Xaddax / My Name Is Rar-Rar
Ripper: Mr. Deer
(Skin Graft)
Apart from an apparent penchant for palindromes and dissonant no-wave music, the common element (although “uncommon element” is more appropriate) between the bands Xaddax and My Name Is Rar-Rar, both showcased on the new release Ripper: Mr. Deer, is the unconventional drummer and haywired electronic musician Chrissy Rossettie.
Available digitally or physically (on a 14-track CD or a 4-song 7-inch single which includes all 14 tracks as digital downloads), Ripper: Mr. Deer pairs the currently operating duo Xaddax, featuring Rossettie with guitarist/vocalist Nick Sakes, with the quartet My Name Is Rar-Rar, which formed in 2000 and broke up after a few years. Also included as a bonus is a punishing 28-minute live track from My Name Is Rar-Rar guitarist Chuck Falzone, with abrasive, crunchy noise, static, piercing tones and feedback.
The two songs from Xaddax, “Ripper” and “Bug March,” are enigmatic, squirming numbers with dissonant notes and pummeling synth lines, and bands such as Mars and Chrome come to mind; the ingredients are right, but this writer can’t help but feel like the duo could’ve pushed them a bit further into twisty territory.
Before it disbanded, My Name Is Rar-Rar recorded the album Mr. Deer in 2003 which remained unreleased until now, and it’s a mind-bending scorcher, coming out of the gate swinging with “One,” sporting abused electronics and sci-fi post-punk madness.
The unhinged vocals from singer Greg Peters are unpredictable, with sounds seemingly being more frequent than actual recognizable words—grunts, howls, yelps and much more; his animalistic vocal insanity (imagine the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes in front of a microphone) thrusts “Hounds” forward with Rossettie’s charged, jittery drumming.
Comparisons to groups like Brainiac, Melt-Banana and Six Finger Satellite wouldn’t be off-base, and it makes complete sense that Falzone and bassist Jonathan Hischke were both players in the rotating cast of The Flying Luttenbachers, the legendary intensely spastic Chicago outfit.
Falzone’s guitar timbres are particularly distinctive, with a sort of plastic artificiality or caustic skronk; he uses an extreme envelope effect on “Ass to Ass,” playing peek-a-boo with a “waka waka” noise (think turntable scratching) and playful circus synth notes that evoke cartoon violence, summing up the album’s attitude that all asses deserve to be kicked.