It’s rather daring and humorous to open an album with a track titled “Horse Fucker,” but this group of musicians is certainly not cowardly or cautious. As this track starts, it sounds like creatures gathering before a rumble, sharpening claws or knives, and strutting a bit. There is excitement, and some nervous tension, each element preparing in its own way, while that heavy bass keeps things grounded and focused. And then nearly a minute and a half in, a signal is given, and things come together, the players or combatants combining their strengths, and building toward something unspoken but understood. Then there is a sudden release before the end. I had a feeling I was going to love this album just from glancing at the track list on the back of the CD case. Following “Horse Fucker” is a tune titled “Corporate Life Form.” And yeah, once it gets going, this one has a busy, hurried vibe, as if the corporate creature is rushing around, taking itself oh too seriously. Then someone shouts out, “The corporate life form must not be allowed to escape planet Earth.” And, hell, I can’t help but agree. This is bloody great, and is one of only a few tracks to feature lyrics, delivered as spoken word. Check out these lines: “The corporate life form is a toxic culture virus/That turns the sacred beauty of the universe/Into the Home Shopping Network/The starving worm that eats love and shits its cancerous desires into human shapes/ Blank-souled half-men who want all of the power but none of the responsibility.” I am completely on board with this song, this album, this band. You know, occasionally you find that someone is from your planet, is one of your species. Well, here they are. “Once your memories are the property of Facebook, Google, Disney, Viacom/Once your secret dreams and wishes have been turned into the coolest new fad and sold back to you.” This line also stands out: “The universe will be just another underdeveloped country, the ultimate emerging market.” I could quote this entire track, because it’s all worth quoting, but here is just one more bit: “At that point the dead, sanitized Disney corpse of human culture will expand to fill all that free space with the infinite plastic trivia that is its only true product.” Hell, if perhaps you can’t quite sing along to this, no matter, for this song will have you cheering. That is, unless you’re one of those soulless scoundrels at the dark heart of the machinery, like Mark Zuckerberg or anyone in the Trump Organization.
Things take a different turn at the beginning of “Cobbler’s Dream,” introducing other strange characters, demented gnomes happily tinkering with some unusual machine. And then, bam, a larger sound comes in, while the tinkering continues, a meeting of the small with the great, to fulfill some surreal goal. And perhaps that’s done in just a couple of minutes, because then we find ourselves on the dance floor, grooving to a totally delicious rhythm, all of us – gnomes, humans, and whoever else might be drawn by the sounds, just about anyone with ears to hear, I imagine. Even snakes are bidden to rise from their wicker baskets and take part. That’s followed by “Cheap Dimensions,” which begins in a rather chaotic place, everyone wanting to speak at once. After a moment we come into some strange clearing, with a deep welcoming voice. Others circle that voice and us, and we begin to suspect someone has slipped us something, and we’re not upset at all as the psychedelics take hold, and we relax. We feel ready for whatever might come, but then it’s suddenly over. Then “Late Melody” has an oddly electronic vibe, like computers are singing to us as we make our way through a busy day. Yet there is nothing stressful about the day. Instead, it is kind of cheerful, like we’re happy to be a part of something bigger. Then things settle down, as day passes into evening, and we find a cocktail in our hands and time to reflect. Ah yes, this is how things should be. But then, ah, there is more work to be done and we are back into it. The two worlds collide. Or perhaps it’s the alcohol. Has the computer been drinking again? This world runs itself, just so long as I remain somewhat near my post, and keep pumping the system with alcohol.
I’ve always thought “human resources” was a strange title for a department in a business, and kind of twisted too, like they’re mining people, farming people, feeding people into a machine, which I suppose is what they are doing. Anyway, I knew this band would have its own feelings about the matter and the phrase in the track “Human Resources,” and perhaps there is something darker here at the beginning, and rather forceful, yet accepted. And then it becomes more human, as if we are using our own resources, or perhaps we’ve just become more immersed in the machine. That’s followed by “Death Sentence,” and the clock is ticking right from the start. Sometimes we wonder just how much time we have, how much time this planet has, and lately things have not been looking good for any of us. This track features spoken word about the state of the world: “And each summer is hotter than the one before/Complete strangers read your email, listen to your phone calls/Keep track of what you buy, what you read, who you know, who you are, who you wish to become/And the cops run like ancient barbarians, killing as they please/An invading army of cowards.” And all the while the clock continues to tick, as we edge past the point of no return. How many moments are left? “Everything shifts and shifts until you have to be so fucking weird just to be normal/So weird your own grandparents wouldn’t recognize you/Someone said we should remove the human element/And you say, let’s do it, let’s remove my human element.” I hate feeling angry, but when I’m not feeling angry I feel like an idiot. Things are tense in this track, jazz with a punk attitude, but things are tense everywhere.
“Greasy Rider” takes us out into the street, where sirens
blare and things are hectic. Yet that pulse remains steady, that bass holding
true while things burst into flames and crumble around it. And we wonder, are
we the bass, or are we part of the insanity around it? I love the percussion on
this album, and on this track in particular. The wonderful percussion continues
in “Good Cop,” which follows. And yes, there are some good cops. I’ve met a few.
This one has a cool vibe, like we’re on the beat with a plainclothes detective
in some city where jazz is king and women are dangerous and it is always night
and everyone is able to say just the right thing at the right time. We meet a
very different type of night-time creature in the disc’s final track, “Demon,” which
also features spoken word, gathering us together to enlighten us: “A lot of religious people have been coming
around here/Trying to tell you about the good news/And we all see how that’s
turned out/I'm here to give you the bad news.” And he screams at us about
the demon, like the craziest preacher you can imagine. But this is no clergy
man. “It’s a demon that decides he needs
to bomb the brown people because he can’t think of anything constructive to do/And
it’s demon that guides our trigger fingers while we stand by and say to ourselves,
We had no choice!/We thought he had a gun!/There’s just not enough to go
around!/Or my personal favorite, God told us to do it.” It seems the demon
runs unfettered these days, and the crazies are beginning to outnumber the rest of
us. The lunatics and the idiots have found a taste for power in the last five
years, and now they will do absolutely anything to hold onto power, even
killing those that gave them that power by telling them not to get vaccinated,
not to wear masks. This is a fucked up time, no question. But recognizing the
demon is a solid first step, which many cannot take. And, you know, a really
great groove develops here, something we can sink our teeth into while we are here.
CD Track List
- Horse Fucker
- Corporate Life Form
- Cobbler’s Dream
- Cheap Dimensions
- Late Melody
- Human Resources
- Death Sentence
- Greasy Rider
- Good Cop
- Demon
Demiurge was released on December 9, 2020.
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