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Distant Relative of Nihilism --- The Artist Formerly Known as Jesus the Carpenter --- 2015 (Frownland)
And so we come to Frownland, to whom the concept of a track in single-digit-minutes is at best a frowned-upon (sorry) suggestion, at worst blasphemy. Ten tracks on this, and of those ten, half are over ten minutes. I suppose that's not too bad. I will probably regret saying that about two minutes into the first track. But here we go anyway.
It's the title track and he's just tuning up his --- oh no, wait: that is the actual music, isn't it? Well, only forty-three seconds in and I'm already hating it. That's a new record, I believe. There's plenty of pithy comments I could make about this; I could say how it sounds like there's a train running behind him, how someone's banging on bins, the
hare krishnas are walking by, and so on, but I'm tired of exerting even my humour to try to detract from how much I hate his music, so I'm just going to wait and see if anything pops up that I can recognise as a melody and if so I'll comment on it. For now though, it's just noise to me. A fact which does not in any way surprise me. Why it has to be fourteen ****ing minutes long though is somewhat beyond me, unless it can be that Frown just likes torturing his listeners for fun.
Okay, a scrap of actual recognisable music broke out there near the end, but he got it under control. We're on to the second track and it sounds just the same. You know, he said to be brutal, so I'm going to be ****ing brutal. How is this considered music? What is the difference between what Frownland is doing here and if I were to buy an acoustic guitar, never having played one or ever being likely to ever be, and just hit the strings randomly as he appears to be doing here? YorkeDaddy plays music. Machine plays music. Even Plainview (no offence) plays music. Music I can recognise, if only in scraps and excepts at times. This just sounds more and more like someone playing with a guitar who has no clue how to play it. I know he can play --- I've heard him on piano. So why he refuses to play anything that I could call music is something that puzzles me. But this is what he does, and we have another eleven minute song that might as well be titled “How do you play guitar, anyway?” Hell, even my faffing about on my crappy synth has to be better than this.
On to the third track (oh God! Only the third? Seven more to go still?) and it sounds like he's put down his guitar and is sawing wood. What's he building in there? What the Hell is he building in there? We have a right to know. Or do we? Do we even want to know? Onto track four and it looks like he may have acquired a sitar. Or maybe a Black and Decker, I don't know. Sure is weird. What's really ridiculous to me is that when he coughs, Frownland doesn't edit this out. Maybe it's meant to be a musical statement that's beyond me, I don't know. But to me it just sounds lazy. I tell you, if I get through this it'll be a minor miracle. I've already decided to cut out the closer, which is the opener done in what he calls “stripped” format. I do not need to hear that again, and it's as long as the original, so no thanks. That leaves us with still five more after this ends, but luckily only two are of the ten-minute variety, so that's some mercy anyway.
Bit of acoustic guitar breaking out here on “In the wrong name”; sort of gospelly/folk touches. Maybe. Someone just laughed evilly. Think it was at me for agreeing to do this. Detecting a sort of sitar-y edge to this too. Somewhere. See, “Hdge wars” now seems just like he's going up and down the scale on his guitar, occasionally hitting something (table maybe?) and this goes on for thirteen torturous minutes! Why, I ask, in the name of sanity? Why? Oh god! Three more minutes to go and then I'm seventeen minutes closer to the end of this ordeal. “Ward No. 7”? Feel like I've been
committed to one! Thank god that's over anyway and the next one is only a minute and a bit long; ironically has the most musical composition of all the other tracks. Well, sort of. “Underestimated kaleidoscope”? Indeed. And the closer has some sort of melody I can follow, which is something of a surprise.
TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS
Distant relative of nihilism
Thus spake
Resurrectus's alterations and repairs service
Squeaky sheets
In the wrong name
Hedge wars
Ward No. 7
Understimated kaleidoscope
A mind is a terrible thing to taste
Only one thing left I can say, my friend, other than sorry and that is
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Rating:
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You can get the whole, unedited experience here:
https://notjesusthecarpenter.bandcamp.com/releases
