DOOM.

Album: Doom Jazz

Artist: Swami LatePlate

Genre: Doom Jazz

Year: 2007

Label: Veal Records

Over the years, Jamie Saft has proven time and again that he will not be confined to just one music box. He wants to inhabit them all and has undertaken a number of strange and sometimes bewildering projects (Whoopie Pie) in order to stretch himself and the minds of his listeners. I’ve written about a few of them. I initially knew Saft for his piano work with The Jamie Saft Trio, an acoustic Jazz group featuring Greg Cohen (bass) and Ben Perowsky (drums.) Knowing only this side of Mr. Saft, I was surprised when I encountered Veal Records and The Beta Popes. Veal Records is a label that Saft started in order to release various side projects of his, all of which have some kind of dark bent to them and The Beta Popes is a trio he formed with drummer Bobby Previte and saxophonist Skerik. But The Beta Popes don’t traffic in Jazz, they do semi-improvised Death Metal and Saft plays a really crunchy guitar with them. Don’t hold your breath, it only gets weirder from here.

Exploring Veal Records further, I found that Saft had several other gloomy projects of interest on the label, but none piqued my curiosity more than Swami LatePlate, a duo that Saft formed with Bobby Previte from The Beta Popes. The group takes both players back to their Jazz roots, but with an M. Night Shyamalan-like twist. Swami LatePlate plays self-proclaimed “Doom Jazz.”

I know.

Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

The basic Idea is this: Doom Metal is a brand of Metal based around slower tempos, crushing low-end sound and lyrical themes that evoke… well… a sense of doom. Saft and Previte decided to take that formula and apply it with a Jazz mindset and instruments. In this case, Previte finds himself in his rightful place behind the drum kit and Saft plays both the piano and the electric bass. From what I’ve heard of the duo’s live show, Saft sits at the piano with the bass on his lap and plays them at the same time, but I’m not sure if that’s how they did it on the record. It sounds a little too tight sometimes for that to be the case, but who knows? Ultimately, it doesn’t make a lick of difference whether Saft is in fact playing both at once, he plays them both beautifully and that’s all that matters.

The music on the appropriately titled Doom Jazz is exactly that: Doom-laden Jazz music. I mentioned Metal earlier? This isn’t Jazz meets Metal so much as it is Doom Metal formula meets Jazz. And the great thing is that it works out perfectly. This is an album of shadowy minimalism, of haunting echoes and shifty looks over your shoulder into the darkness beyond. The slow pace and low tuning of the music allows for sense for a sense of dread that is unfamiliar in Jazz. It has a very noir feel to it, and in my personal experience it makes for great night driving music. From the opening drum roll of “Malignant Cloud” to the final piano chord strike of the last and title track, Doom Jazz takes you on a journey through the darkest corners of Saft and Previte’s minds.

There are no words, but the titles of the songs and the liner notes tell a story of a 1984 like prison world where a man named Frank tries desperately to escape from something evil which is keeping him and his fellows prisoner. I don’t know the outcome of Frank's story, but do know that the track “Escape” is followed by the title track, which implies to me that either Frank did indeed escape and this is the credits music, or the Doom Jazz is the very thing he was fleeing from and it has finally caught up with him. I’m shivering just thinking about it. I’m also writing this review in pitch dark and listening to the record as I do. It feels appropriate.

Another thing I don’t know for sure is how improvised is this project. Saft and Previte are both accomplished Improv artists, but some of this sounds too tight to be completely off-the-cuff which makes me think that it’s probably somewhere in between.

There is something about the Doom Jazz concept that isn’t entirely original though. Actually it’s been done before and for a while. A German band called Bohren & Der Club of Gore have been playing a very Doom-like form of Noir Jazz since the 90’s and have released several albums in that style. I’ve even written and posted about one of them on my old blog. But if I had to choose between Swami LatePlate and Der Club of Gore, I’d have to pick Swami LatePlate and here’s why: Bohren may be talented band with a lot going for them but what they don’t have is dynamic drumming or really, dynamic anything. Every single one of their songs uses essentially the same two or three drum sounds and it gets really old, really fast. They have a fantastic saxophone and keyboardist, but their rhythm section just kind of sits there, doing the same thing for minutes on end. If anything, their music can be too minimal. Swami LatePlate on the other hand manages to be both dynamic and spooky, with full kit work from Mr. Previte and Saft’s chilling piano and bass work.

Describing the individual tracks is a little beyond me because they all follow the same formula and still manage to sound different, but I know that my favorites are the opening cut “Malignant Cloud”, “The Forbidden Border” and The already quotation marked “The Bearded Man Cannot Help You.” Of all the Veal Records releases, Swami LatePlate is the one with the most interesting sound and also just the flat-out most listenable. It’s probably my favorite of all of Jamie Saft’s weird little projects and if you like Jazz, you should get this album. If you like Doom, get this album. If you like Bohren & Der Club of Gore, get this album, it’s way better.

Swami Lateplate's Doom Jazz On Myspace

A Live Rendition Of "The Bearded Man Cannot Help You" On Youtube

A Live Rendition Of "Escape" On Youtube

Veal Records On Myspace (Where You Can Buy The Album)

(Making Up For Lost Time) The Horror... The Horror...

STOP: I Highly Recommend That You LISTEN TO ME Read You This Review. The MEDIA PLAYER Is Located Near The Bottom Of The Review, Before The Links. Enjoy!

Album: Primary Colours

Artist: The Horrors

Genre: Death/Shoegazer Rock

Year: 2009

Label: XL

The Horrors seem to have the world in the palm of their hand. Critics love them (NME, Drowned In Sound;) they’ve got cult-like followers and the admiration of elder statesmen of the music world (Geoff Barrow, Trent Reznor). On top of that they’ve got a great sound, chock full of gothic darkness and shoegazy textures and, as if that weren’t enough, they’re young, having only existed for four years. All of that is fairly respectable and makes me wonder what’s wrong with this picture. But even I’m quashing my inner cynic for this one, because, ultimately, I like The Horrors. Sure they’re not my favorite band in the world, but I’ve found this album, Primary Colours, strangely addictive and fun to listen to and since anyone worth their salt would need more convincing than that, I’ll take you on a tour as best I can.

We are living in an era of Post-Punk revivalism, as clearly demonstrated by bands like Interpol (Joy Division,) Bloc Party (Gang Of Four, whether they like it or not,) Romance (Sisters Of Mercy AND Gang Of Four) and now, The Horrors who don’t so much revive Post-Punk as they break into the graveyard where it’s buried, unearth the coffin and make off with it into the night. They then take the corpse down to the lab, where, using a mixture of dark science and a borderline unhealthy dose of guitar feedback, they resurrect Post-Punk. Then, they begin to begin to tinker with it.

The Horror’s sound is not unique by any means, but it is a fun amalgam of what has come before, in this case Gothic Rock mixed with Shoegazer. The darkness of the sound and the lyrical themes recall Goth at it’s best, but the guitars and synths come from the My Bloody Valentine side of the park. As with MBV, The Horror’s guitars and synths are all about the texture. They want you to not so much hear the sound, as they want you to feel it. And you do. Listening to (and feeling) the music is sort of like being immersed in shimmering waves of darkness and light that warp and twist around you like smoke in the wind.

The darkness is not oppressive, however, and unlike My Bloody Valentine, whose guitar waves threaten to drown you, The Horrors seem to understand restraint. Or, more accurately, Geoff Barrow (of Portishead) knows how to restrain them. In his role as producer, Barrow seems to have allowed The Horrors to blossom into a dark flower, that only here and there needs trimming. From what I understand about their relationship, Barrow’s job was to reign in The Horrors when they took something too far, rather then to help shape their sound. Ultimately, Barrow’s greatest contribution to the album may be that his stamp of approval is one of the things that convinced me to pick it up.

The problem with The Horrors first album, Strange House, with the exception of their cover of the Screaming Lord Sutch song “Jack The Ripper,” was that none of the songs were particularly memorable and the band’s choice of influences to display made them sound like a bad combination of Christian Death and the Ramones. It would be fine to try and combine those two, but the overall effect of Strange House was one of monotony. Primary Colours is a welcome change in that all the songs manage to sound different from one another and Faris Badwan, the band’s vocalist, has, for the most part, dropped the horrible scream he employed on so much of Strange House in favor of a more varied delivery. His voice is a gothic drone on the epic love song “I Only Think Of You,” an agonized bark on the deranged “New Ice Age” and a dream-like mutter on the synthesized wash of “Scarlet Fields.” All of these voices are still noticeably Badwan though, and that’s a good thing.

There are a lot of great cuts on Primary Colours. All the songs I’ve previously mentioned are good ones but my personal favorite is the dark spiral of “I Can’t Control Myself” which sounds like the band on a ship, sliding and slipping on the wet deck as they try to cling both aboard and to their own sanity. Another excellent cut is the eight minute closer “Sea Within A Sea” which apes the atmospherics of Joy Division and the synthesized shadows of Suicide and combines them into one of the Horrors’ best songs and a great way to close out the album.

Sadly, this album is not a perfect masterwork and is, rather incredibly, nearly done in by a single track. That track is the third song on the album: “Who Can Say” which begins as a simple apology song to an ex-girlfriend, but during the bridge I nearly lost my shit. The music mostly stops, except for the drums and a distorted guitar line. Over this Faris Badwan speaks “and when I told her I didn’t love her anymore, she cried” and then “and when I told her that her kisses were not like before, she cried” and continues “and when I told her another girl had caught my eye, she cried” and finally “and then I kissed her with a kiss that could only mean goodbye.” Then the music starts back up again like nothing ever happened. My description isn’t going to do it justice; you’ll have to hear it to fully understand just how pretentious he sounds when he does this. He doesn’t sing it, he speaks it and there’s an echo effect on his voice. It sounds abominably insincere and makes you want to gag. It is with this song that I’m reminded of how ridiculous this band can be. I really hope that they weren’t taking themselves seriously with “Who Can Say” because if they were, that’s cause for alarm.

But overall, Primary Colours is still a great album chock full of great songs. It is thus far the band’s best work and it stands up to repeated listens, which goes along way towards The Horrors being more than a flash in the pan. Just please, for the love of god, skip “Who Can Say.” This album would have worked just fine without it and you’re not missing anything (except maybe some cringing) by not listening to it.

The Horrors On Myspace

The Album Is (In Pieces) On Youtube

Band Website

Buy the Album

Jubilee: ROCK'N'FUCKINGROLL Part. 2 (Five Weeks Later...)

(This review will make much more sense if you've read the one previous to it.)

Picking up right where we left off…

Album: In With The Out Crowd Single

Genre: Hard Rock

Year: 2008

Label: Buddyhead

Consisting almost exclusively of hard rockers, The In With The Out Crowd Single has a far heavier sound to it than Rebel Hiss did. It (of course) starts off with the title track, a song about being stuck in L.A. with all the people who go to L.A. to make it big and wind up working in diners or something. It’s a more down beat song than the explosive “Rebel Hiss” but it rocks just as hard, featuring more fuzzy, distorted guitar goodness from North and Lynn. The first b-side on “In With The Out Crowd” takes a turn for the more experimental direction. Sounding more Industrial than anything else Jubilee has thus far set to tape, “I Don’t Have An Excuse, I Just Need A Little Help” features programmed drums from Trent Reznor and backing vocals from Maynard James Keenan of TooL, both of which, along with Michael Shuman’s rough bass line and North’s jagged guitars, make it the darkest sounding Jubilee song in existence.

The third track is the humorous “Jenny Artichoke” which lyrically sounds like something The Presidents Of The United States Of America could have come up with and even features hand claps. It’s the most fun and funny song Jubilee’s recorded work, which contrasts heavily with “I Don’t Have An Excuse, I Just Need A Little Help.” Following that is the bone shaking, ground pounding “Pioneers Get Shot With Arrows” which stomps up and down the room just daring for someone to challenge it to a fight. It could kick your ass too. The final song on the single another cover, Jubilee’s take on The Who’s “Someone’s Coming” which to my knowledge is not a famous Who song at all. But it’s a good one, or at least the Jubilee version is, bent and twisted as it is by North and Lynn’s guitars.

The music of Jubilee is undeniably fantastic; it’s all the stuff after the music that causes confusion. Shortly following their tour of England, Shuman and Lynn left the band to go back to Wires On Fire (which doesn’t make any sense to me, because compared to Jubilee, Wires On Fire suck,) so North hooked up with Tony Bevilacqua (of Spinnerette, formerly of The Distillers) and Jenni Tarma (of Har Mar Superstar.) He also got a permanent drummer in the form of former Icarus Line drummer Troy "Boy" Petrey. This new line-up actually doesn’t sound half bad, but they’ve yet to tour and Jubilee hasn’t released anything new in a while. Which brings up the question: where’s the album? It’s been close to two years since the first single was released and if the album’s going to be anything like it, then it’s bound to be good. So what are you waiting for North? Hit us with this bad boy!

End of Review.

Note: If you want to make purchase of Jubilee’s material, you can only do it from their website. You have to be a member of their online club thing to get The Who and Replacements covers, but if you just want the first four tracks from each single, it rounds out to about $6.00. Good deal for this music.