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Dusted Reviews
Artist: Wizardzz Album: Hidden City of Taurmond Label: Load Review date: May. 7, 2006 |
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Hidden City of Taurmond is, typically, a bejeweled and bedraggled lost wonder; sparkly things and invaluable icons lost to years of negligence and the decay. Only this doesn’t go back so far as Atlantis. Think more along the lines of Kraftwerk, discovered by New World plunderers in a 1972 discotheque, their suits and synths pristine and the dance floor caked with moss. And yeah, maybe the boys got a little jungle rot, but it didn’t stop them from recording a potential soundtrack to Dark Crystal.
To cut to the chase, Wizardzz is Lightning Bolt’s bassist Brian Gibson manning the drums and ex-Forcefield sprite Rich Porter on synthesizer and down-my-throat mic. Skins are pummeled, dense rhythms get locked down, distorted vocal salvos are fired from a few strategic positions, but there isn’t so much noise here. Gibson’s drumming is paced, excitable but never manic; the synthesizer sounds are of the conventional taking-you-on-a-mystic-journey variety. Porter’s synth rides the wah between glissando and ostinado, Cluster-esque ambient swells and nervously precise riffs swatted from beat to beat, and always on the beat. There’s never any fear that the whole thing will fall apart.
Between the dungeon scenes there are a few breaths of freshly sealed air: “Diamond Mirror” plays like a madrigal for MIDI and “Do Come In (Tea and Chulliwigs)” is a sort of Super Nintendo symphony. On both, Gibson throws down the sticks, letting the machines control the remotes.
Costumes aren’t so much warranted here as mandatory, as this is a real junket in the wilderness of Middle Earth, at play in the post-apocalyptic pastures of those German gentlemen’s bastard grandchildren, complete with cloven creatures. Either they’ve pulled the escape hatch or it’s a soundtrack for the toys of the late Cold War, tossing gravitas for the fantasies of the happily distracted. If the realm of noise were made of dust rather than dirt, and its denizens were somehow transported from the era of Bush to ye age of psychedelic wenches and fried prog gremlins, certainly David Bowie in Labyrinth would approve the indulgence?
By Alexander Provan
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View all articles by Alexander Provan