Jon Spencer

One of the recurring themes in early-Nineties music is the search for a syncretism with a vaguely vintage aftertaste. Grunge, trip-hop, the experiments of Primus, Stereolab, Royal Trux, Beck (just to name a few at random), all revealed themselves to the world by highlighting a new way of understanding musical exploration: drawing on the past and reshuffling the deck.

The Seattle bands flaunted a sound that blended the filth of punk with the heaviness of hard rock, Massive Attack drew on soul and hip-hop, Primus synthesized a sound reminiscent of Frank Zappa's experiments filtered through a sensibility closer to noise-rock, and so on.

The Blues Explosion also finds its place in this nostalgic melting pot, founded by Jon Spencer right after the end of Pussy Galore. The trio, rounded out by Judah Bauer (guitar) and Russell Simins (drums), forged a sound built from putrid punk-blues, funk-soul echoes and electronic openings born of old school hip-hop.

In 1994 the trio released "Orange", their masterpiece and one of the most memorable albums of the decade.

Unlike other bands of the period, Blues Explosion knows no half measures: it doesn't try to smooth out the rough edges or bridge such distant sonic worlds, but instead pushes every element to its most extreme consequences, following a logic not unlike (in principle) the one pursued a few years earlier by John Zorn's Naked City. Over a sonic body built from skeletal blues riffs and raw distortion, the trio grafts on disorienting electronic textures made of analog synths, dissonances bordering on industrial, and irresistible funky rhythms.

The opening is memorable: "Bellbottoms", after an intro that's refined and savage at once, dishes out a soul groove complete with hammond organ propping up the sonic raids of the Spencer/Bauer duo. In a constant back-and-forth of feral screams and black music moves, a strange hybrid takes shape between James Brown and the most depraved Cramps. "Ditch" carries on in the same vein, expanding the band's sonic spectrum toward a square funk clearly inspired by hip-hop, over which Spencer's shamanic voice resurrects the primitive, dramatic spirit of the blues. The track closes with a sax mistreated in the manner of the worst Contortions, evoking scenarios not far from a certain strain of no wave.

But it's the title track that reveals the band's true intent: to paint the blues in an entirely new color. Spencer, master of ceremonies, declaims "I see Orange, I got the blues, can I scream?!", the guitars intertwine and clash (at times it sounds like an even more stripped-down Sonic Youth), all of it driven forward by a relentless rhythm and timid synth intrusions.

The most majestic numbers aren't long in coming either, starting with the primitive "Sweat", where the sound reaches moments of pure primordial chaos. Next comes the orgiastic "Blues X Man", the absolute high point of the record, a noise-rock bacchanal that detonates into a whirling finale, and the exhilarating "Flavor", featuring guest Beck, a sensational country-funk number where the hip-hop of Public Enemy coexists with garage-rock white noise.

"Greyhound" closes the album amid funkadelic synths and vitriolic bursts of guitar.

But every single track on the record is a small masterpiece of synthesis. "Dang" is a furious punk-blues number disfigured by a dissonant harmonica and a theremin that recalls the restlessness of Pere Ubu, while "Full Grown" sounds like a futurist James Brown.

The band's greatness lies precisely in its (evidently uncommon) ability to bring together sonic fragments from the most disparate contexts, creating a whole that remains homogeneous and coherent. Not a sound that leans toward this or that genre, but a maelstrom in which the essence of roots music coexists with visionary scenarios bordering on the avant-garde.

Towering over everything is an absolutely extraordinary vocal performance, always incisive, capable of being ironic yet grating and obsessive in its thunderous repetition.

"Orange" is a record with an absolutely and unmistakably bluesy sound, an album made of old music, yet at the same time one of the most advanced experiments rock managed to produce in the past decade. Of course, like many masterpieces, it didn't have a worthy follow-up: Blues Explosion's output from the subsequent "Now I Got Worry" onward showed a clear decline in songwriting and synthesis skills, nor were there musicians able to pick up its legacy. On other fronts, if anything, acts like Us Maple and Old Time Relijun managed to give new shape to the blues' instincts, but that's a whole other story.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

07/12/2008