Given that this is a collaboration between a noise duo, a toy collector, and guy known for sometimes playing an electrified rake, it is not entirely surprising that this recording session is a bizarre Dadaist mess. Nevertheless, I remain deeply confounded by it all and cannot begin to guess what exactly the participants were attempting to achieve or to what degree they may have succeeded.
Glöggerne are a chaotic Danish experimental electronic duo made up of Mikkel Ring and Christian Skjødt. In 2003, they permanently teamed up with like-minded Czech artist/toy enthusiast Martin Klapper, but the trio did not release their debut (With Sound) until 2007. In the past, they have worked with experimental luminaries like Derek Bailey and Evan Parker, so a pairing with Chadbourne is not completely unexpected. Eugene, of course, is a pretty established figure in the American underground: he has been lurking in the fringes and playing his unique mutant roots music for over 30 years now (he also wrote for Maximum Rocknroll and hosted a somewhat legendary radio show, for good measure). While he has generally associated with free-form instrumentalists like John Zorn, Sun City Girls, and Fred Frith, abstract electronic music is not entirely new territory for him, as he has also worked with Kevin Blechdom.
Essentially, this album is built around Chadbourne's hammy mangling of several old country and folk classics in a disjointed medley while accompanying himself on banjo and guitar. He certainly has good taste, tackling Merle Haggard’s “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive” and Ernest Tubb’s “Good Year For the Wine” (among others), but his interpretations seem much more like half-assedly messing around than anything deliberately avant-garde or deconstructionist. The rest of the guys back him with a spirited yet seemingly random splattering of unspecified electronics, toys, and sundry amplified objects. However, Glöggerne and Klapper are usually pushed to the background whenever Chadbourne is singing (the session was recorded live onto one track), but a surreal flurry of squelches, hums, squawks, and odd sci-fi noises continuously burbles and simmers and occasionally bursts into the foreground.
While this is an undeniably strange album, it rarely becomes anything more than pleasantly diverting and can get quite annoying in places (particularly during Chadbourne’s shouting and frenzied noodling in “North Carolina”). Also, it often sounds like the surreal sound collage stuff is completely independent of what Chadbourne is playing. Glöggerne and Klapper are certainly capable of making compelling work (as evidenced by their previous album and this album’s few Chadbourne-less interludes), but With Dr. Chadbourne just feels like an off-the-cuff jam session. While it was probably fun to make, the end product is ultimately far less than the sum of its parts.
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