Supreme Dicks

Reviewing an album is hard enough as it is. Now try reviewing a hallucination. Because that's exactly what "The Emotional Plague" is: a hallucination, a journey into an "other" dimension where the usual coordinates of reality are completely warped. It's a record that devastates, because it upends every ordinary assumption and convention about melody, rhythm, sound. These three guys from Boston never took their art too seriously (the band name is a plain giveaway), and never quite realized what they were actually creating. That very unawareness is one of the hallmarks of genius — a word that in music (and elsewhere) needs to be used sparingly, but that, applied to Supreme Dicks, is anything but an exaggeration. A genius is someone who sees beyond, who perceives what others fail to recognize, who observes the world from a different vantage point. That's exactly what they did, through a wholly unique way of playing. But where does their uniqueness actually lie? What sets them so sharply apart from everyone else? What differentiates them is their technical approach to their instruments, played as if distractedly, listlessly, half-heartedly, often out of tune.

These traits might suggest kinship with the slower end of post-rock, the likes of Red House Painters or Low — but that's not the case. What ultimately sets their mad project apart from the rest of the pack is atmosphere. Because this is a record that lives on atmosphere, shaped by their dazed, off-kilter approach to harmonic development. Often there are no arrangements to speak of, with each instrument seemingly going its own way, as if in the grip of some feverish, drunken haze, overlapping in apparently random fashion to conjure a landscape where everything feels warped, muffled. Rhythm is almost entirely absent, and when it does appear, it's more an insolent, metaphysical palpitation than any real backbone. The guitar, the central element of their sound, brings to mind both the impressionistic touches of Durutti Column and the restrained picking of all things "implosive" in post-rock, such as Codeine. The sound is unmistakably psychedelic in nature, its stretched, liquid unfurling playing a crucial role in recreating that wonderfully dreamlike climate. Every now and then a trumpet or flute pokes through, entering as if by accident, almost drained of vital energy, like the voice of a sick vagrant lost in some nocturnal corner of the city.

The mood is steeped in a chilling metaphysical pessimism, yet it's never funereal or despairing. The pain the record expresses doesn't translate into the sadness of minor chords, but rather into a state of deep emotion born of its dramatic fragility. At times, tears well up from the disarming tenderness it's capable of, from the almost childlike innocence of its unfolding, which, set against the sense of martyrdom found in other passages, lends the record an almost philosophical weight.

But now it's time to drift off, into 60 minutes of sleep made of music, and far fewer words, reduced to humble younger sisters next to its extraordinary visionary power. The faint whimper of a languid guitar slowly introduces, in an almost narcotic way, "Synaesthesia". The notes fall achingly sweet, tender and innocent, but just as the landscape seems to turn reassuring, a gloomy, out-of-tune piano chord sounds like a looming threat. That piano starts moaning more and more, the mood turns sickly, the listening experience dizzying, every instrument seeming to weep, to lament. This isn't something you're used to hearing, and the perception of these first five wondrous minutes becomes disorienting, yet damnably fascinating.

"Cúchulain (Blackbirds Loom)" introduces a new element: singing. The tone is as forlorn as ever, almost drunk, but this time the pretty ballad seems to come closer to what we're usually inclined to recognize as a "song." Sure, it's their version of a song, but it's still anchored to a "chorus" that, however wonky, is still a chorus. The air seems to clear, but it's only an illusion, because the following "Columnated Ruins/Seeing Distant Chimneis" turns out to be one of the album's deepest nightmares, a true manifesto of oneirism in music. A

lone man rambling in disturbed fashion, making no sense at all, his voice trembling, amid a thousand tolls of hypnotic, sickly guitar and electronic effects, in a convulsive delirium that draws you in dangerously. Thankfully the guitar turns sweeter, giving off more "familiar" strums, the drums start to resemble actual drums rather than that strange drum-like shape they took on moments before... but just when things are looking up, everything vanishes, resurfacing as a lunar lullaby in "Along A Bearded Glade," where we're dragged into the wonder of a starry night, and comets catch light from the sustained guitar chords, which magically dissolve, trailing a long, glowing tail behind them.

But here come the old ghosts again with "Swell Song," a sinister musing from a voice growing ever more spectral, this time grappling with what, in waking life, would be a bizarre street blues.

A gong-like strike plunges us into the depths of perhaps the album's chilliest track, "Showered." The flute that appears after a few seconds lets out an icy-cold wind, and it's about as moving as music can get. A mournful, forlorn wail devoid of strength, seized by a morbid madness, struck by the usual glinting shards of six-string guitar. Its beauty is truly disarming, moving enough to bring tears to your eyes — the finest compliment beauty can receive.

The tortured bass of "A Donkey's Burial In A Tower On A Mirage" restores the tension, gripped by constant, nerve-wracking spasms. The experimental side comes through even more strongly here; any semblance of linearity or predictability has long been lost in the deep sleep... no minute is like the next, no chord follows logically from another, the notes exist only to sketch out a state of mind, to conjure an atmosphere. Music is reduced, more than ever, to a mere means, in pursuit of an almost unimaginable end.

The trumpet that thrashes about hysterically, opening "Adoration de l'Agneau Mistique," turns, as the seconds pass, into a baby's cry, giving rise to one of the album's most ramshackle tracks, but above all confirming its childlike spirit, until the instruments fall silent, giving way to a chorus of tavern drunkards, forlorn, disinherited souls, perhaps pleading for a little mercy.

Melody unexpectedly peeks through on "Porrige For The Calydonian Boar," which plays like the comatose version of Slint's "Spiderland" — a slow, exhausting circular theme stretched out over nearly ten minutes with unshakeable stubbornness, culminating in a thoroughly wonky instrumental orgy. This apotheosis seems to carry on into the even more chaotic opening of "Siberian Penal Colony (Ode To Joel Stanley)," but that too is just an illusion, yet another mirage within the mirage. Silence, a hugely important element on this record, quickly hushes the chaos, offering as travel companions only a shapeless electronic hum, an anemic hi-hat, and the usual guitar, this time more minimalist than ever, faithful companion to their minds wrecked by imagination.

A long drone opens the doors of "Green Wings Fly Adventure (Showered Reprise)," more nocturnal than ever, lost amid the same voice's anguished singing, led by the hand of an almost epic trumpet that blows proudly through the air as if declaring the end of this mad journey. And just when it all seems over, the chorus of madmen returns once more, singing their final testament in unison, accompanied by a little carnival orchestra.

Finally awake, aware that you can dream whenever you like, with no need to fall asleep — just by putting this extraordinary record on. Few in the history of rock have been capable of the same magic, few have been so truly avant-garde, so bold, so revolutionary, so moving. Perhaps none have combined all these qualities at once. Time will never age its beauty. If anything, it will only pay it the tribute it deserves.

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12/11/2006