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Ernesto Diaz
Infante, Rotcod Zzaj and '99 Hooker:
Make no bones about it, these collaborations between West Coast avant-garde minimalists Ernesto Diaz-Infante (guitars, vocals) and Rotcod Zzaj (Kurzweill 88, vocals) are weird. Do not listen to this music with any expectations of conventional song structure or melody. Even fans of rock experimentalists such as Tortoise or Sonic Youth might be off-put by the sheer degree of patience that this music demands of its listeners. The music on Sirius Intrigues is a confluence of the slow, asynchronous guitar noodlings of Diaz-Infante and the myriad computer-generated ambient soundscapes of Zzaj. These sounds include waves of keyboards, traditional drum noise, and assorted percussion as well as distorted background vocals that sound as if a television was left on at low volume in the background of the studio. The epitome of the entire album is contained in the almost interminably long Black Dwarf Beatnik, a song that contains samples of actual drums for part of the percussion track. These drum noises do not keep rhythm, though, as there is no traditional rhythm to be found here. Instead, they serve as another color on the musical palette that the musicians use to add depth to their painting. These drums mix with guitar scratching and noodling, various other percussion elements, and dissonant computer noises to create layers of completely unique, yet incredibly odd landscapes of sound. Elsewhere on the album, songs do not reach such lengths but still contain many of the same elements continuous slow guitar improvisations, ambient noises, odd washboard sounding percussion, beeps and blips, and spoken words pushed way to the background. Out of Orbit stands out from the crowd with its rapid bursts of piano phrasings added to the mix. Overall, the album is partially reminiscent, at least in spirit, to the very end of John Coltranes career when he formed his avant-garde groups that consisted of musicians all individually creating their own music with no regard for what the others were playing and especially with no regard for structure or melody the goal simply being to capture that ethereal moment. On Sirius Intrigues, Diaz-Infante and Zzaj are likewise using dissonant sound to strive for that moment. The Future Has Already Been Done retains Diaz-Infantes guitar and Zzajs ambient computer noises, but strikingly adds 99 Hookers samples to the mix. This record is completely about these samples, which are not just samples of sounds or instruments but also samples of popular culture itself. They include snippets of other musicians familiar songs or vocals (both The First Song and Allright contain many different samples of Beastie Boys songs), classical chamber music, television/radio commercials (one for Blockbuster video is especially prominent), movie dialogue, and even sports play-by-play announcers (the baseball announcing duo of Jack Buck and Tim McCarver stand out). These samples are spliced together, repeated, and distorted assembled into a giant collage of sound. The result is a much more aggressive, dynamic record that the casual listener more easily would be able to appreciate. I enjoyed both of these records, but in doing so, I had to bring a lot to the table of my own. Sirius Intrigues is not a record I will find myself listening to much ever again its more a record that you hear, appreciate the great degree of creativity that went into making it, and then put it away for a very long time. You understand and appreciate the entire concept from just a few tracks and do not need the entire 70-minute plus running time to have those same concepts repeated over and over. The Future Has Already Been Done, with its entertaining sampling and more in-your-face approach, is definitely the more accessible album and the one I enjoyed more. If you are looking for an art concept record that utilizes the sounds of popular culture (and arent we all?), this is your answer.
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