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Psychophagist: Il secondo tragico
11/02/10 || Khlysty
Ever since John Zorn “discovered” grindcore and decided that he liked it mucho and that he wanted to experiment with it –either by using grind’s formalism within the context of his Naked City project, or by creating a “free-grind” band like Painkiller- there’s been quite a few dudes out there who thought that this was a damn good idea (that is, mixing grind with elements of other genera of music, like jazz, funk, ambient, etc). Ergo, we, the poor listeners, have been rained through the past years with a slew of spastic, hyper-compressed ejaculations of atonality and aggression, that, while sometimes interesting, usually ended up being for the most part unlistenable and, well, boring.
Psychophagist (which either means eater of souls, or eater of psychos…) is an Italian band that’s committed to grindcore’s more experimental and decidedly more demented side. Besides guitars, drums and bass, the quartet uses sax as a lead instrument of its songs and, generally, waxes all free-jazz and free-form song structure. This means that the songs contained within “Il momento tragico” are choke-full of jarring tempo, scale and time signature changes and are slathered with sax-choking all-around craziness.
If one’s looking for linear song-development and hooks, one’ll be sorely disappointed: these ten songs, whether of short (one-and-change minutes), or of longer (almost six minutes) lengths, are full of extremely abrupt twists and turns, that create a sense of total chaos and disorientation to even the hardiest and most experienced listener. So, it would be easy for me to just stamp on the record an “avoid it, all ye who want to listen to music” and be done with the fucker. But, see, this shit’s got some things going on for it that make me reluctant to just reject it.
First off, the production choice the band made is of pure genius: instead of going for an oversaturated sound, they choose a clean and clear production, which gives great instrumental separation, thus enabling the listener to discern whatever the fuck each instrument does all the time and follow the songs’ development as closely as possible. This choice is, as I said, pure genius, also because its shows that the guys here aren’t just noise-mongers: the bandmembers chops are high-caliber, with everyone of them doing great things with his instrument.
The sax is skronky and noisy, but never sounds out of place within the context of each song. The guitars, whether slashing away, or doing fretboard runs, or playing little crazy schemata, are always extremely creative and inventive. The bass is pretty upfront and its jazzy-funky-slapcrazy presence will be a source of debate for all bass-lovers. The drummer is forceful, powerful and creative and sounds as a combo between a good grind drummer and an inventive and totally demented free-jazz percussionist. The vocals are of a desperate screaming type, but are juxtaposed here and there with spoken word and are pretty effective for this kind of music.
Also, on the songwriting front, the band is pretty effective when it combines free-jazz skronk with grind dementia, while the songs contain enough “hooks” (in the shape and size of repeating motifs, smart runs and “melodic” interludes) to warrant repeated listens, just so that one can properly understand what exactly is going on. If you want an idea of what the band really sounds like, image early Dillinger Escape Plan going all free-jazz, without losing any of their speed and intensity and you won’t be far off the mark. Bottom line is that Psychophagist is tight and inventive and “Il secondo tragico” is a really cool record. Adventurous listeners should take notice immediately!
- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Subordinate
- Website: Psychophagist MySpace
- Band
- Stefano: guitars, backing vocals, sax
- El Duca Conte: drums
- Marcello: bass, vocals
- Luca T Mai: baritone sax
- Guest musicians
- Eraldo Bernocchi: guitars, effects
- SEC_: analogue synthesizer
- AmenazA: flute
- Saverio: keyboards
- Tracklist
- 01. Uomo o merda
- 02. Tema: collasso
- 03. Untitled (black on grey 69/70)
- 04. Nouvelle de spasticité & épilepsie
- 05. Defragmentation rotunda
- 06. Il secondo tragico
- 07. Corpuscle
- 08. Pithecanthropus sapiens sapiens
- 09. Biodegradazioni
- 10. Free-non-jazz powerviolence sonata
