SMEGMA - Rumblings

Thirty-two years of a highly respected yet far too little celebrated career, and only now their first true rock'n'roll album? Almost.

The fact remains that Smegma, excepting the Nihilist Spasm Band, are probably the longest-running noise-rock group in the world; with "Rumblings" they've revealed quite a few cards, ending up sounding more classic than ever. Some hints of a barely concealed love for original surf-rock had already surfaced on "Ism" back in '93, as well as on singles from the same years (later included on "Tiromancy", a dubious Japanese release from '98) and also on "30 Years Of Service", the Portland collective's collaboration with Steve MacKaye, saxophonist of the Stooges.

On the new album, dated 2005 and released on the label of Aaron Dilloway of friends Wolf Eyes (who have collaborated with Smegma on multiple occasions after calling them the greatest rock band in the world), one can hear, broadly speaking, a series of tracks with a surf-blues-rock structure, played in slow motion and drowned in every kind of effect, from the usual lo-fi electronics to samples drawn from everywhere, a true trademark of the Portland commune. Alongside these more conventional pieces, there's room for the usual instrumental ravings, taking the form now of an oriental dirge ("In An Ornamental Garden"), now of dark, murky free-noise ("Electron"), now of minimal-impro pastiche ("Bunstuffer"). As if that weren't enough, the band continues to spare no assorted oddities, such as an entire track ("Rails (Uncoupled)") made up exclusively of the concrete noises of a speeding train. And since train-songs have always been a peculiar heritage of American folk, it's not so far-fetched to consider "Rumblings" a traditional record, always of course within the scope of Smegma's output, a world in which the most insane cacophonies have always easily flowed into musical structures that are improvised only in appearance.

The relative ease of listening to an album that starts from such premises is proof of an instrumental and sonic awareness that makes the musicians involved true unrivalled gurus of the most "different" and broadly "weird" strain of indie-rock from across the ocean and beyond.

Also worth noting is the presence, as a singer under the pseudonym Borneo Jimmy, of rock critic (and "lyricist" for Blue Oyster Cult) Richard Meltzer, father of so-called "gonzo journalism", who alongside Nick Tosches and Lester Bangs is a true icon of American rock criticism.

Among the few who in 2005 can genuinely speak with authority on what rock music is (and has been), with everyone listening in silence, Smegma, from Portland, continue to render us speechless without ever being deafening, indifferent to media attention and still fixed on that vision which, since the early '70s, has been carrying music further and further away, ever more toward some psychedelic who-knows-where…

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09/02/2010