Miss Piggy Lunchbox

I experience a phenomenon with certain comedy television shows, Monty Python, Dave Chappelle, and South Park among them, where, when somebody describes a sketch, routine, or segment of the show to me, I find it side-splittingly hilarious. When I watch the show, though, iincluding the described parts, I sit straight-faced wondering when the boredom will cease. (Note: Does not apply to South Park’s early work, which I found pee-my-pants funny.)

The musical analogue of this phenomenon has to be Secret Chiefs 3 who, as mentioned in a post a year-and-a-half ago, have been recommended to me by more friends who like the same obscure music I do than any other band. And it figures they should be: they are led by Mr. Bungle’s guitarist Trey Spruance and joined frequently by Mr. Bungle members and contributors Bar McKinnon, Trevor Dunn (also in Fantômas and has contributed to Melvins), Danny Heifetz (if I haven’t told you my story about meeting him, remind me to tell you), and William Winant. Upon discovering our Mr. Bungle connection, these conversations with friends always go the same way:

Friend: Do you like Secret Chiefs 3?

Me: Probably. I only have First Grand Constitution And Bylaws and…meh….

Friend: Yeah, that one’s not so special. You gotta get Second Grand Constitution And Bylaws. Book M also rocks.

So here I am with the band’s second album, originally released in 1998 and remastered in this format with a bonus track added in 2000. And…meh…. Spruance, Winant, and Heifetz all deliver technically brilliant and compelling performances, and Spruance’s compositions are, of course, off-beat, creative, and intriguing mash-ups of techno, surf, spy music, disco, funk, and Middle Eastern rhythms and tonalities. It’s like if “Desert Search For Techno Allah” from Mr. Bungle’s 1995 album Disco Volante (probs my fave album of all-time) were stretched out for a whole album. Then, in “Jãbarsã,” I swear he actually samples audio clipping and uses that sample as the basis for an instrument for a complete mind- and ear-f**k. Still, I find myself kind of bored through big chunks of this.

Who knows? Maybe I’m just too obsessed with the election to enjoy anything (I’m barely even looking forward to my birthday, because there will still be 12 days to go). In the end, I’m just befuddled by the whole thing. Not only with the music being less-than-gripping, but with the liner notes, too. There’s this whole Sufi mysticism thing going on that is completely opaque. The liner notes nearly start with this passage.

Once you are familiar with Book T (having remained unmoved by the spectre of Death) you may pass through the “Source of Life” at the psycho-cosmic center (Qaf). Here you will gain access to the Huraqalyan World, or “Eighth Climate.”

And I am just not getting on that train. At least not without Sufi Mysticism For Dummies or something.

Still, though, even that sounds awesome when it’s explained to me by somebody else. Along with the quotes I pulled from Seattle’s alternative weekly The Stranger 19 months ago, consider what’s written by Jonathan Zwickel, also of The Stranger and one of the people who, whenever I read them, make me never want to write about music again because I could never be that good, on the band’s page on Spruance’s label’s web site:

Legend has it that 11th Century Persian sheikh Hassan-i-Sabbah inspired fanatic, even suicidal, devotion from his legions. His method of initiation was to kidnap and drug his foes’ fiercest soldiers, then bring them to his fully functioning Garden of Earthly Delights, which was complete with exotic delicacies, fountains of wine, and good-to-go virgins. When his captives came to, dazed and suggestible in their psychedelic stupors, they were told they had died and entered heaven. Sabbah had only to promise that each of his subjects would return to Paradise if fortunate enough to martyr himself in his service. For a century, Sabbah’s Hashishim — “Hash Eaters,” from which we derive the word assassin — were the most feared killers in the known world.

It seems that Sabbah and Trey Spruance have something in common. Spruance, Secret Chiefs 3’s chief composer and a former guitarist for Mr. Bungle, is a visionary madman capable of instilling both fear and respect in his listeners.

…

Over three years in the making, Book of Horizons is Secret Chiefs’ most expansive and coherent statement, an alchemical fusion of Morricone-esque cinematic grandeur, midnight surf guitar, traditional Middle Eastern rhythms and time signatures, demonic death metal, and electronic deviance that yields a work of undeniable force.

Holy crap, that sounds incredible. I have to go get Book Of Horizons right f’ing now…I’m sure to love it.

Who knows? Maybe this album just needs more demonic death metal, which I was expectingor maybe it just helps to be really stoned. I guess I should have listened to this when all my friends were telling me to. Oh, and as I’ve been writing this I’ve promoted “Zulikfar II” from non-keeper to mixer and “Book T: Broken Glass Hearse” to keeper and added a half-lunchbox to the rating. So maybe it just needs more time, but my editor’s breathing down my back.

Rating:

Mixers: “Zulikfar II,” “Jãbarsã”
Non-keepers: “Renunciation,” “Jãbalqã,” “Book T: Orbital Ballroom In The Hall Of Resurrection,” “Beyond The Mountain Qaf,” “Hurqalya”
Filed Between: First Grand Constitution And Bylaws and Sensational (Get On My Page)

After MPL Laboratories created the equation that describes the relationship between the quality of Radiohead’s cover art and their music, we wondered if it wasn’t, in fact, an inverse relationship. After developing further experiments to try to answer that question, we can now saw conclusively that it is not a relationship that behaves strictly inversely. This was proven by the fact that Kid A’s art is their worst yet, while the music is not their best. Furthermore, their best album from the 20th century (and I’m including this release from 2000 in that list) is OK Computer whose art is actually pretty good.

Kid A is actually pretty similar to OK Computer in style. In fact, if I were to randomly hear one of their combined 22 songs, I’m not sure I could place it on the correct album with much more than 50% accuracy. The U2 influence is completely gone by now, and Radiohead has come into their own as a unique, formidable creative force. Like OK Computer, the straight-ahead, guitar-driven rock is put aside for a synth-y, cold, and detached, while still beautiful feel. Unlike their prior album, though, Kid A is more of a mood machine than a collection of songs in the traditional sense. It is a work of music, in and of itself, an opus, if you will. It does not lend itself to shuffle play, and will only submit to being played from start to finish.

Kid A was the album where the band decided to really challenge their fans, as virtually every song takes on some kind of experiment to mix a new sound into the Radiohead oeuvre. “Everything In Its Right Place” implements an effect where it sounds like Yorke’s vocals are on a cassette tape that is being eaten, “The National Anthem” features a chaotic free-jazz ensemble highlighted by a Morphine-like sax solo, and “Treefingers” is a new age-y piece composed of sustained chords with harmonic movement but no progression. And that’s just in the first half of the album. The second half contains “Idioteque,” that, with its tight drum hits, sounds like it could have come right out of a club, and “Motion Picture Soundtrack,” with bagpipe-like synths and a brilliant harp part. And of course it all works excellently.

Kid A doesn’t cripple me with its detached, powerful emotion the way OK Computer does, but it’s still a masterpiece. There’s hardly a flaw (*cough* “In Limbo”) from start to finish, and what’s there is brilliant, but just shy of transcendental.

Rating:

Mixers: “Everything In Its Right Place,” “The National Anthem,” “Optimistic,” “Idioteque”
Keepers: everything else…”In Limbo” mostly only because it fits with the rest of the album
Filed Between: OK Computer and Ramones (Ramones)