 The
90s were a fertile time for big, loud, dirty, and heavy. There was the
grunge explosion, of course, which is now often viewed as a simple
changing of the guard: out with the old (hair metal,) in with the new
(flannel.) It was a lot more complicated than that, naturally: grunge
wasn't initially a brand name, or movement, so much as a sound, a big, nasty, loud, gloriously primitive, grungy
mash of 70s heavy metal thunder, 60s Detroit insanity, and 90s record
geekdom that sure as Hell wasn't limited to Seattle and/or college
students in Sub Pop T-shirts.
This brings us, conceptually at least, to the Dynamite Masters Blues
Quartet, or DMBQ for short. Forming in 1995, they embodied the genuine
core of what had been reduced to a fashion in the West, blending sonic
filth, visceral rock 'n' roll rage, and the parts of psychedelia that
were more scary than trippy. DMBQ were never going to be mainstream,
they weren't going to be writing any pop songs anytime soon, and they
were dangerous. Instrument destroying, audience baiting, eardrum destroyingly dangerous.
They started to truly hit Western radar with 2004's "Esoteric Black
Hair," a slovenly mix of Hendrix inspired scuzz and manic cockiness.
But much of their back catalog is still a mystery to the West, obscured
by the twin bugaboos of language barrier and foreign distribution. So
let's get to it, shall we? There's a lot of worthiness in there, and
I'm going to fish out "I Know Your Sweet," a 1999 disc that displays
the band's warped take on heavy, heavy psych.
You immediately know what you're in for with "Turtledove," a downright
obscene, lumbering beast that's equal parts Captain Beefheart stumble,
"Foxy Lady,"and hip shake. It's almost too damned lumbering and manic,
clearly made of the constituent elements of the blues, but too spastic
and enraged to fit. Parallels could be drawn to the Laughing Hyenas, or
perhaps the ragged splatter of Australia's Scientists, but it's also
HEAVY, learning the lessons of momentum and enormity that often made
Hendrix so damned powerful (see "Purple Haze," et al.) Vocalist Shinji
Masuko inhabits a space somewhere between the arrogant sneer of
Mudhoney's Mark Arm and the ominous growl of Union Carbide Productions'
Ebbot Lundberg, shredding his vocal chords as the lumbering riffs toss
him about. Halfway through, there's a bottleneck slide solo from Toru
Matsui that comes dangerously close to falling apart completely. Like a
lot of the best rock 'n' roll, it just plain sounds dumb, and is all the more entrancing because of it. Staggering stuff, and that's just the first four minutes.
The centerpiece is "Flashbulb," a 20 minute howler that tips the scales
towards the psych end without sacrificing the menace. It sits on the
razor thin line between "grunge" and the then emerging Stoner rock
aesthetic, somehow merging a delicate (if ominous) view with pummeling
riffs and an utterly huge wall of sound. It ebbs and flows, hitting
peak after peak, only to collapse back into Arthur Brown territory, all
wide eyed panic and wriggly guitar, at least until the "Sabbath Bloody
Sabbath" bit kicks in.
Rough stuff, this. There are so many sharp edges and blunt objects in
"I Know Your Sweet" that it can seem a bit monochromatic at first
listen, like a formless rant. But listen closer: this rant is nothing
if not hyperfocused, and those willing to subject themselves to a
little danger are in for one hell of a ride.
---
Available from Amazon Japan
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