Man, it’s been awhile. Hex came out in, what, 1993 or so? What gives? Graham Sutton gets some friends together, records a modest record which receives almost no promotion but invents the whole “Post-Rock” genre, then he just disappears for eleven years? Hm.
If you’ve never heard Hex, kick yourself now. When your posterior regains feeling, get a copy. You won’t be sorry. It was (and still is) one of the true masterpieces of the 1990’s, easily ranking along with records like Loveless and the first Low record in terms of sheer originality. It’s a slow, sparse and almost hopelessly melancholy record that exists in its own private universe, with nary a trace of any outside influence. One critic, not knowing how to pigeonhole it, coined the term “Post-Rock” to refer to it, and the name stuck, but after touring for a bit, Bark Psychosis just seemed to dissipate. Sutton went off to work on a drum-and-bass project called Boymerang, and that was seemingly it.
About a year ago, tracks rumored to be from a new album started circulating on the P2P networks, but nothing was ever announced. I had all but forgotten about them until the other day when I saw the new record on the shelf.
I had no idea what to expect. After all, eleven years is a long time. Hex is practically an influence, and “Post-Rock” has come to incorporate all sorts of restless swell, including Tortoise, Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor. Where would these guys fit in?
Surprisingly, they don’t. Sutton’s held firm in his approach. There’s some change, but it’s incremental, and he seems to be completely unaware of all that’s transpired since the last record. For most acts, that’d be the kiss of death, but not here. After all, Sutton had just begun to mine the possibilities in Hex, and Codename: Dustsucker simply picks up where he left off a decade back and expands on them.
Hex was a lonely night-time trundle down the back streets of some quiet city. It seemed to exist in its own space and time, never hurried, never overadorned, it simply was. Sutton’s quiet, half-whispered lyrics could only be deciphered on close scrutiny, which was a hard thing to achieve since every sound seemed to have meaning and equal weight. It was a hall of shimmering mirrors and half-glimpsed shadows.
If I could criticize Hex of anything (besides a total lack of humor), it would be its slight monotony. In a way, this was a strength for it, since the record had the capacity to suck the listener in and hold them suspended and motionless for forty-five minutes, but you’d come away not being able to recall any specific moment. It was all a blur, a vaguely-remembered idea, easily lost on reflection.
Codename: Dustsucker (isn’t that a Beefheart song?) manages to mix things up a bit without losing its way, and it’s an even more satisfying experience as a result. Like the first, this isn’t something you’d listen to on the morning commute. It’s the sort of music that makes you stop whatever you’re doing and stare off into space until someone smacks you in the back. It opens with a brief chatter of shortwave call-sign and the vocals enter so quietly, they’re almost unnoticeable over the lull of bass and traps until the guitars float in. Immediately, I was reminded of the best moments of Auburn Lull’s Alone I Admire. Sutton’s gone from morose to elegaic, which means he’s slightly peppier than last time around. The first track rises almost imperceptibly to an anticlimax of distorted guitar, and you’re in.
Like the first record, Dustsucker manages to stretch out time according to its own principles. No, literally. Listen to this record and tell me you don’t agree. You hear words like “engrossing” and “immersive” thrown around in so many press-releases that they lose meaning, but those are about as good as I can do for adjectives here. “The Black Meat” cruises along nicely enough until 2:52, when a cornet enters, the tempo picks up, and you’re in a Twin Peaks bar watching the smoke gather around the ceiling tiles.
“Miss Abuse,” while not the strongest track here, exemplifies Sutton’s approach. There are no “hooks” to speak of, but the song is somehow anchored by the instrumentation and texture. The tinkling of toy pianos and guttural bass are hooks in and of themselves, not the notes they play. The track rises and disintegrates into a passage that sounds like the eerie twin of Mouse on Mars’ “Frosch” before things (literally) start falling over in the studio. Oddly, the use of found sounds like this does nothing to dispel the illusion, it only makes the whole experience that much more disorienting.
“400 Winters” is a hushed duet between Sutton and Rachel Dreyer over brushed cymbals and well-placed vibraphones. There’s a subdued, fumbling desperation to the track that, despite its surface beauty and seeming lack of substance, gives it a certain sort of tension. “Burning the City” is almost a folk song, with a gently strummed acoustic and Sutton’s voice straining to be heard, even in the most placable of settings.
“Inqb8tr” takes forever to get started, but that’s the point, really. The whole track, like the rest of the album, is like something overheard far away, across some smoky river. Towards the middle, there’s an almost abrupt stab of backmasked guitar and processed vocals, but they’re gone before you can latch on to them. They’re almost forgotten until “Shapeshifting,” when Dreyer’s vocals come back in, this time anchored to a beat and a mournfully descending minor-key progression. Her voice sounds exhausted, and even as the guitars rise to a more animated pitch and sway, she sings, “I walk like a machine,” and her tone is a mix of desperation and regret that’s almost tangible. The vocals eventually disappear, and the subdued violence that’s been hidden for the first four minutes rises slowly but inexorably toward the end of the track, until the whole ensemble seems to evaporate and fade away.
“Rose” is all quiet rumination and resignation, slow plucks at the strings and a quiet organ. There’s not much going on, but you can almost sense some hidden dialogue hidden underneath.
This certainly isn’t a record to be taken in over one sitting, and it’s certainly not for the morose or troubled. There’s a certain breathless fragility running through it that grabs the listener and doesn’t let go, and by the time the last track fades out, you’re left groping for something undefined, but somehow lost.