Impractical Cockpit, a collective of now-scattered New Orleans’natives, has released five records prior to To Be Treated. And whiletheir music does bear some of the characteristics of the oft-referencedfree-folk genre, Impractical Cockpit’s sound actually recalls a greatdeal of early 80s experimental hardcore like Flipper and early ButtholeSurfers.Load
On the opener, “Furrowed Frow,” dense torrents of guitar shrapnel aretossed off while rattle-trap drumming keeps the song plodding along.The following song, “Passion of a Cop,” is even more desolate sounding.Howling vocals and noisy passages of industrial din make this song oneof the first to jump out ahead of the rest. A minute in and insistentdrumming turns the song from a rambling, unfocused noise jam into apiece of pretty bracing psychedelic fuzz. One perhaps the strongestsong of the whole album, “No More Strobelight,” the band eschew thejamming and instead opt for tightly coiled skronk rock, that sounds notunlike noise-funk outfit Black Eyes. The rest of the album alternatesbetween disjointed guitar pickings and eerie folk jams, such as the onefound “Grails Golden Garden,” which by the end of its six minutesdevolves into a hushed ambient hum, with occasional flourishes ofchimes and marimba. At the other end of the spectrum is a song like“Creeping Giant,” easily the weakest one present on To Be Treated, withits howling vocals and simple drum beat. Perhaps the most bizarre songincluded here is “Latitude: North 41° 53' 0" - Longitude: West 70° 45"46'” which consists of random sounds and various voices rattling offseemingly nonsensical strings of numbers.
To Be Treated isextraordinarily uneven, a statement which most would probably findobvious given a quick listen. Yet despite its constant shifts in moodand sound and structure, Impractical Cockpit still manage to make it anoverall engaging listen.
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