5uu's - Tel Aviv Construction Events 1-3


Year of Release: 2004
Label: Independent
Catalog Number: n/a
Format: CD
Total Time: 13:34:00

Ah, we meet again, Mr. Kerman. It wasn't long ago that you and your 5uu's hopped hysterically through the synapses of my brain, triggering spastic jitters of delicious delight and warping my spine into shapes previously unheard of as my body contorted itself in order to follow your demented rhythms. Or maybe it was long ago, but you can't honestly expect me to know that when the odd brain cell or two keeps flaring up with violent neon sparks from the marvelous Abandonship, can you? Ah, what's that? You come with a second serving? Dessert, more like? Ah, you really shouldn't have (come closer, come closer...). No, really, it wasn't necessary (just one more step...). Aha! Hand it over and nobody gets hurt! No no no, I said hand it over! Now! Ah, that's more like it.

Ooh, I can already feel my skin tingle with expectation as I hear the buzzard sounds inaugurating "Bulldozer" and how they are soon joined by an awkward keyboard theme bordering on elevator muzak. And the drums are lovely, too, but what really gets me going is the way it all starts building up irremediably until I can almost see Ariel Sharon's most confrontational nature spouting orders of demolition right in front of my nose and the keyboard theme has taken on an entirely new meaning with the surrounding sonic debris. See, Mr. Kerman, you and your men have this ? special thing going. Yeah, sure, you tend to exploit ostinato patterns like most other RIO bands in order to build up the genre's typically exquisite tension, but while they do it with clinical precision, there's something wild and savage in your stuff, almost like it's on the border of going haywire any second. Like "Resolve" here?

Ah, now that's a poster child for the entire RIO movement if I ever saw one - lean, mean, catchy, belligerent, and always slightly off, but in a good way. I mean, Deborah Perry's robotically altered vocals and the pseudo-funk bass and drums around them would have been enough, not to mention the piercingly delicious keyboard interlude before getting back to a slightly different world of bizarro funk, but no, not for the 5uu's - the 5uu's need a bunch of saxophone noise madness to transition from robotic psycho funk to a devastating motif with an uncompromisingly savage bass line that clocks out at the perfect moment every time - gee whiz, Mr. Kerman, you fellas sure know how to get to an inch of driving a man crazy and then releasing the tension, perfect masterstroke after perfect masterstroke. And the closing vocal "duet" between robo-Perry and the counting male voice, with the twangy zither sounds right behind it - simply perfect. See, Mr. Kerman, that's the other thing. You and your men are simply not afraid of diving right into jarring themes and driving them round and round like an auger, because you know exactly when to let up and then hit back with renewed strength. It's like a super roller coaster ride, except ten times better.

But then you went ahead and hit me smack in the face with "Community." See, Mr. Kerman, I originally thought you'd given up on me and decided to play some of that New Yorky Sinatra spin-off stuff with the wrong notes and slightly dissonant and ugly harmonies that some new music composers revel in like pigs without brains, but then you had these chains and these creepy sounds, and a section where the vocals and the piano had this ominous unison moment that was really, really eerie, almost like Present. And then it dawned on me, Mr. Kerman. The reason your music keeps triggering bursts of electricity inside my brain up to this very day is not the haywire risk or the penetrating auger (although those do help), but how you manage to turn material that would seem like nothing more than sonic sludge - and not the good kind, mind you - into contrasting brilliance by surrounding it with the right changes, the right evolution, and the right musical intuition. Heck, if you just kept doing that, you could turn a simple ditty into a transcendental experience. Oh, wait, that's "Community." Never mind. But you could turn a thirteen minute EP into an amazing musical ride though. Oh wait, that's Tel Aviv Construction Events 1-3. Never mind. Again.

You know, Mr. Kerman, you may think you've got it made. But this here fellow can tell you one thing that you don't know how to do. Brace yourself. Ready? Sure? Ok, here it goes: disappoint. You don't know how to disappoint.


Tracklisting:
Bulldozer (4:53) / Resolve (6:20) / Community (2:21)

Musicians:
Dave Kerman - brush drums, chair squeaks, toothpicks, guitar, hand percussion, piano, chains, vocals
Udi Koomran - computer, cassettes
Scott Braziael - keyboards, autoharp
Chris Cutler - electric drums
Ned Rothenberg - shakuhachi
Bob Drake - drumstick slide-bass
Dror Fieler - contrabass saxophone
Deborah Perry - vocals
Avi Belleli - vocals
Janet Feder - prepared guitar

Discography:
Bel Marduk & Tiamat (1986)
Elements (1988)
Hunger's Teeth (1994)
Crisis In Clay (1997)
Point Of Views (combined reissue 1 and 2 releases)
Regarding Purgatories (2000)
Abandonship (2002)
Tel Aviv Construction Events 1-3 (2004)

Genre: RIO

Origin US

Added: November 28th 2008
Reviewer: Marcelo Silveyra
Score:
Artist website: www.generalrubric.com/dkerman/
Hits: 3671
Language: english

  

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