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Sunday, December 4, 2011
JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #292
IT’S MOVING! IT’S JEFFREY MORGAN’S MEDIA BLACKOUT #292!
Styx – Regeneration: Volume 1 (Eagle) :: Think
of it, Fritz! The Bee Gees brain that you stole will live again in that progressive rock body!
Lou Reed & Metallica – Lulu (Warner
Bros.) :: It is a monster! We must destroy it!
SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Levin Torn White – Levin Torn White (Lazy Bones) :: And while we’re
on the topic of indestructible monster mash ups, do stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but you really shouldn’t
try to argue the issue because just a chronological glance at your record collection will prove that, as rock ’n’
rollers get older, it’s utterly inevitable that they get softer—and I’m not talkin’ about virility
in the sack, I’m talkin’ about volume in the studio.
As maxims of maturity go, TURN IT DOWN does
seem to be their overriding axiom of aging because, with the obvious aberrant exception of the earlier aforementioned Jeffrey
Beck, every single raucous rock musician who ever lived, has lived to see the day come when their sonic six-guns
were hung up in exchange for a pipe and slippers.
Even such much-vaunted
volume advocates as Neil Young and Jimmy Page have had disconcerting bouts of flaccidness recently—assuming that they
even bother to wake up to show up. And don’t you start me talking about former noise boy Miles Davis, who prematurely
blew all his goo on Dark Magus only to thereafter be reduced to the sad spectacle of shooting blanks, as evidenced
by such sterile secretions as You’re Under Arrest and Doo-Bop.
But there’s always an exception to the rule, and this fourteen track all-instrumental album is it—with an emphasis
on the mental ’cause Levin Torn White takes everything that you thought you knew about heavy
industrial progressive rock and effortlessly transmutes it from traditional fusion into a new element of audio contusion that
you won’t find on any heavy metal periodical table. But please don’t let me be misunderstood: I’m not talkin’
about mental as in crazy coo-coo mental, I’m talkin’ mental as in sonically supernatural Magneto-style
metal manipulating mental, with an occasional against-type foray into Klaus Schulze electro-drone Krautrock atmospherics.
Then again, what else would you expect from the veteran You Are Experienced
likes of traps master Alan White, who’s smashed skins for the Plastic Ono Band and Yes; guitarist David Torn, who’s
shredded strings for Don Cherry and David Bowie; and bassist Tony Levin who’s similarly strung along with the likes
of King Crimson and Peter Gabriel?
But since even that peerless pedigree
won’t be enough to prepare you for the gifts that these three wise men are bearing, you’re just gonna have to
shell out your hard-earned shekels and hear for yourself how effortlessly the spasm-inducing slaw firm of Levin Torn &
White can command this volatile new source of aural energy that kids a quarter of their age only wish they could
corral. Heart monitor not included.
Be seeing you!
Sun, December 4, 2011 | link
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