A Perfect Uniform

We here at Sonic Masala have always been massive fans of everything Ben Greenberg has put his hand to. Obviously we are Men acolytes (my cousin Greg and I are huge fans of this latter-stage Springsteen fixation too, although for fluctuating reasons – there’s a post in there somewhere, but that’s for another day). I also really like Greenberg’s solo stuff, a wild guitar exploration as Hubble. And of course there is the excellence of Pygmy Shrews… So when I heard he was in a new outfit called Uniform (no pun intended – geez, two in one day!) I was very excited. But not as excited as I became when I heard who the other dude was – Michael Berdan. The dude from Drunkdriver. An incredible band blighted by the heady fog of controversy, and I have had Berdan withdrawals ever since. Suffice to say I am glad that we have something new coming to the fore – and their album, Perfect World, is all I wanted and more.

It’s decidedly no-frills, rough as guts, sneering, diseased proto/primitive/industrial punk spitting forth from the maw of Time's beginning, somehow both dangerously regressive and deliriously futurist. Berdan’s vitriolic snarl echoes out from the ether, a discombobulated voice without a source, the Id of a nihilistic civilisation destined to thrive in the grave. All the anger, anguish and torment, both real and perceived, doesn’t bubble over rather than ejaculates that pent-up emotion, an expulsion of base forces at once purifying and scarring. Greenberg’s guitar hasn’t been this scabrous since early Men, and the bass synth and drum machine adheres to a militaristic deathmarch that refuses to halt, a constant funereal dirge into a dystopian Nirvana. The basic streamlined gear used vibrates from the strain, but therein lies the allegory – the primal emotions can threaten to tear us apart, but channelled just so and you are acidly cleansed. Long live the Perfect World.

Perfect World is out soon through Alter/12XU – grab this great record here.

No Positive Visitors To These Dreams

Finally, I'm going to bed. It's been a sweet day - a long day at work, followed by my first university lecture gig, followed by some sweet Vietnamese (both brew and food), and finalised with Bardo Pond, supported by my friends in Dreamtime and Pale Earth. I even spoke to Isobel from BP about how they used my entire post about the UK reissue of Ticket Crystals verbatim for their PR - so yeah, sensational day.

And now I'm in bed, drifting off, with Quttinirpaag's No Visitors in my ears. Not only is it an absolute syntax nightmare, and it has the acronym for the university I'm working at in it, BUT this LP from the Austin noise marauders slays. This is what synthetic nightmares are made of - glacier of glass breaking down as an avalanche of sonic shards, barbed wire, silicon coffins, morphing membranous contusions, monotonous dark hallways, shadows that shudder frame by frame. Motorik contortions rise from the swamp, offering relief in electrified sleep, before static explosions rend everything asunder. Quttinirpaag list Skullflower, Drunkdriver and Twin Stumps as flickering guideposts in their headlight-void drive down a lost highway, so you know exactly what to (or what not to) expect.

Not really the best sleeping material, sure, but it's working for me. Let the Sandman come - he'll have a fight on his hands...

You can buy No Visitors (on deep purple vinyl) here.