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All functional humans have the capacity to make noise, whether it'swith what genetics gave them or the tools they make. However, very fewhave the capabilities of making noisy things sound amazing to the humanear. Some bands never achieve this. Thankfully, at least Jackie-OMotherfucker does a good job of achieving it about half the time oneach their albums. In all of my recordings of this Portland,Oregon-based collective, they have remained consistent between thenumber of songs that sound completely derivative and uninspiring tosongs that really sound like an impressively orchestrated group ofmusicians whose sounds amount to more than just chin-scratching mayhem.For the latest disc, the band opens with a track that doesn't move faroff the Molasses-like northern white guy hillbilly blues singing tipand follows it up with a track that kept me re-referring to the packageto make sure it wasn't an elaborate cover of Jandek's "Carnival Queen"with tape mutilations. It's at this point, however, that the ensembleis basically getting in gear. They pause for a 17-second instruction onplaying on "the seven" and by halftime through the immense (andperpetually changing) fourth track, "777 (Tombstone Massive)," I'mhappily lost in a daze. It opens with relentless drum and percussionpoundings then halts, restarting with a crackle, wind instruments,chimes and a low string drone. A quick rise reintroduces the forcefulpercussion from the first few moments but thankfully that dies down forthe mesmerising interplay between strings, winds, and chimes. Just wheneverything boils up to a clumsy, disorganized borderline masturbatoryjam with nobody paying attention to each other, (the end of "Feast ofthe Mau Ma") quietness befalls the record and all is good again. Thealbum ends with two more 10-minute pieces: a blissful quietinstrumental and a 'manual' loop of guitar and drums with distortedvocals which leaves me with an unsettling feeling despite theviolinists struggles to play something pleasant. One of these days thisband is either going to make a record that will be my favorite of theyear or send a pipe bomb to my P.O. box. I don't know which to fearmore.
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