Black Dice
Creature Comforts
[DFA; 2004]
Rating: 8.0
When No New York was issued in 1978, it should have been fair warning to anyone within earshot that punk would not be confined to fashion statements or cathartic brattiness. Featuring four bands from Manhattan's lower East Side, the Brian Eno-assembled compilation highlighted an artistic spirit far removed from the "pretty vacant" methodology of punk's first wave; as it happened, the sprawling, confrontational noise put forth by DNA, The Contortions, Mars, and Teenage Jesus & The Jerks resembled nothing so much as similar output by UK second-wave outfits like John Lydon's Public Image Limited or Cleveland-based archetypical post-punks Pere Ubu. That is, their "confrontation" came not so much in the physical power of the music (though it could be abrasive, to say the least) but in the conviction and often awkward, raw execution of their brand of expression.
No-wave was as much art-rock as it was punk, and despite its failure to break into the mainstream, its ideals were permanently stamped onto scores of musicians afterwards. Taking direct cues from the short movement, bands like Sonic Youth and Swans continued the often dark, grating sonic template of no-wave, and ventured even further into conceptual grounds normally associated with modern classical composition or performance art. In some ways, no-wave's successors were merely continuing a long standing New York tradition of eclecticism and the post-modern in rock that had been initiated in the 60s by The Velvet Underground and influenced by composers La Monte Young, Tony Conrad and Terry Riley. However, in the 80s, alongside a budding (and often antagonistic) American hardcore scene and wildly creative strands of post-punk all over the world, what stylistic benchmarks had been attributed to no-wave shattered into countless strands of noise, electronic music and the otherwise indescribable.
Almost three decades after the fact, New York's art-punks seem to have come full circle-- though the landscape of the rock press has not. Liars have been butchered in most mainstream music rags for making "unlistenable" music on their latest album, which, to my ears, sounds more like a tribute to art-damaged post-punk and no-wave circa 1982 than any kind of radical change in direction. Likewise, Sightings and Black Dice draw from noise, experimental punk and perennial New York faves-from-Japan High Rise and Fushitsusha. Not surprisingly, they get fewer Spin props than more melodically stable NYC outfits like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or The Strokes (both of whom also happen to draw on the early 80s post-punk for inspiration, albeit "new-" rather than "no-" wave).
However, Black Dice, like the best of the original wave of avant-rockers, have yet to lapse into redundant hero worship or watered-down stylistic approximations. Depending on how you feel about perpetual forward motion, the Brooklyn trio (formerly a quartet, now minus drummer Hisham Bharoocha) could be admirably ambitious or maddeningly flighty; thus far, they've established a pattern on their full-lengths of abandoning the previous album's sonic palette for something drastically different. Their earliest releases could veer from spiky, violent impressionism to what Pitchfork's Brendan Reid described as "anti music" in his review of 2001's Cold Hands. When the band moved to the ultra-hip DFA label for 2002's Beaches and Canyons, one might have expected them to dabble in electroclash-- which they sort-of did on the "Cone Toaster" 12-inch, only to immediately switch gears on the hazy, ambient Miles of Smiles EP earlier this year.
Creature Comforts is Black Dice's fourth full-length, and second for DFA. Lo and behold, it doesn't sound like anything else they've released. This record is made from pedals, delay, computers, solemn guitar arpeggios, loops, robot jungle sounds and cosmic ambience. It's almost completely divorced from any strand of rock (or even punk), yet sits comfortably alongside fellow New York trippers Suicide and English provocateurs Throbbing Gristle. There are percussive moments, but no real beats; there are noisy moments, but it's hardly a "noise" record; much of it seems improvised, yet for the most part the album proceeds in a linear fashion, as if one long, strange story is unfolding. Black Dice, apparently unconcerned with establishing their noise-rock niche with peers Wolf Eyes or Lightning Bolt, are content to follow their muse as a matter of practice.
The brief opener "Cloud Pleaser" begins with a simple, folkish guitar line (oddly reminiscent of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl"), and adds electronic bongos, a dash of xylophone and light buzzing sounds hard-panned to the left and right. The subtly insistent pulse established by the small, electronic orchestra gives the piece a tropical edge even as the sounds suggest a piecemeal, post-apocalyptic Salvation Army setup. "Treetops" takes re-orchestrates that pulse with a ping-pong generator drum and distorted space bubbles. Throughout Creature Comforts, impressions of the jungle-- be they animal calls or tribal pound-- shape the soundscape. The end of "Creature" overflows with a wild, nocturnal frenzy using live percussion to accentuate the desperate, red-eyed cries of assorted robo-beasts jumping and flying about the mix.
The 15-minute centerpiece "Skeleton" rises slowly, with a slightly warped guitar figure, looped over more jungle percussion and unidentifiable humming calls (a human voice?). Like much of the rest of Creature Comforts, "Skeleton" features a surprisingly small number of instrumental elements. Black Dice uses them in a way that not only takes advantage of their skill manipulating electronic sound, but also unifies the album's otherwise disparate segments. The piece glides through several sections of propulsive ambience, each morphing into the next, and when the hi-hat pitter-patter emerges from a collage of looped guitars, the effect is as if stepping out of the jungle into an oasis, even if only for a short moment.
I probably shouldn't be surprised to hear such striking moments of clarity. Black Dice, living up to their track record of ever-diligent experimentation and the embrace of change, as well as a vibrant backdrop of New York pandemonium, have delivered one of this year's most interesting records and proved that you don't have to be noisy to make beautiful noise.
-Dominique Leone, June 21st, 2004
Review by Wade Kergan
If the tag "cosmic American music" hadn't already been claimed by rockers in love with honky tonk, then it would certainly apply to Black Dice and Creature Comforts. Since it has and the cold dead fingers of Gram Parsons and his followers aren't likely to loosen their hold on it, then Black Dice must be what hides within that mossy rock, a faceted geode taking in light and turning it in a thousand directions. Black Dice started their electronic spelunking in 2001 with the half hardcore, half noise of Cold Hands, before completely abandoning their avant-core roots for the blissful beeping reductionism of 2002's Beaches and Canyons. They followed with the four-on-the-floor anchor of 2003's Cone Toaster single and the art-gallery cool of 2004's Miles of Smiles EP. Following those creations, it's much easier to hear how Black Dice arrived at Creature Comforts than the jump that came between their previous full-lengths. The album emerges with the tipsy, vaguely tropical guitar of "Cloud Pleaser" and quickly dives into the electro-jamming that they established with Beaches and Canyons. The shifting patterns and off-kilter loops that defined that album are here, at times sounding like a more deliberate version of Maryanne Amacher's vertigo-inducing third-ear music and sometimes like the folk hypnotics of Animal Collective. Things really kick in with the almost title track "Creature." It's all rumble, echo, and a higher-ground drifting that recalls a different kind of cosmic music -- the kosmisch psyche of Popol Vuh (a presence that reestablishes itself later in the album with "Skeleton") as well as the rough soundscaping of fellow electricians Nautical Almanac and the sci-fi soundtrack classic Forbidden Planet all at the same time. It's not all blissed-out bubbling, though, with ugly scrapings and feedback still playing a part in the Black Dice mix without ever overpowering it. Ultimately, Creature Comforts is another starry refraction in the cosmic music claimed by Black Dice, a refraction that hasn't yet failed to dazzle.
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