reviews / 2023

JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER - Manual Of The Bayonet

Name: JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER – Manual Of The Bayonet
Item: Manual Of The Bayonet
Rating: 6
Author: Francesco Nunziata

2023 (Feeding Tube)

psych-free-folk

by Francesco Nunziata

The first volume of archival material from the American collective, “Manual Of The Bayonet” collects tracks recorded between 1999 and 2001, a period during which leader Tom Greenwood enlisted the help of about a dozen collaborators to bring order to his sonic musings, straddling post-psychedelia, free-folk, improvisation and assorted experimentation — a synthesis that, according to many in the know, reached its peak between “Magick Fire Music” and “Liberation”, two albums released in the early 2000s that were hugely popular among the most curious fans of outsider music.

Far from essential (in short, it's what you'd call “stuff for die-hard fans” or “completists eager to show off a brand-new vinyl to their music-geek friends”), “Manual Of The Bayonet” might nonetheless have the merit of pushing new listeners to retrace the path of Jackie-O Motherfucker, here grappling with blunt no-wave grooves that give way to atmospheric jazz excursions led by alto sax (the title track), free-folk ceremonies played in a state of self-induced coma (“Breakdown”), free-form dissertations with India in the heart and deep America at the back of the eyes (“Deep Sleep Blues”), hypnotic circles traced around the edges of the desert (“She Cuts Heart Shapes”), and free flights of the mind toward the prairies of the soul, in a play of iridescent acid-blues reflections (“Red Slipper Ritual”).

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07/04/2023

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Francesco Nunziata, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition