Phish
Undermind
(Elektra)
The
news about Phish splitting up – and this time it looks like it’s for real
– travelled all over the world via the Web – a big, sad surprise for all;
titled Undermind, the new album – which had already been recorded and mixed
– was to be released soon; summer dates had already been announced – a shorter,
less tiring tour than those of the past, before the "extended hiatus"
that had been intended to refresh the group and their forte: cultivating the
unexpected (a feature that had made the group a precious and vital anachronism
in the US scene). The hiatus (a period during which the members released individual
projects) seemed to have worked: Round Room sounded more musically vital than
its predecessor, Farmhouse. While their new concerts – many of which could
be purchased in a "virtual" form – showed the group avoiding routine
(always) and attaining peaks of pure transcendence (sometimes).
But
this was not Trey Anastasio’s (the guitarist and quasi-leader who composes
about 90% of the group’s repertory) opinion. During an announcement which
appeared on the Web on 05.25.04 – an announcement
whose sobriety didn’t fully succeed in hiding the implied drama – Anastasio
said: "We don’t want to become caricatures of ourselves, or worse yet,
a nostalgia act". Anastasio spoke along the same lines during an interview
with Charlie Rose, on May 26, during the Charlie Rose Show, on PBS. We are
not there yet, said Anastasio, but we are "getting there".
It’s understandable that the brouhaha for this unanticipated decision
(unanticipated even by the other members of the group) stole the scene,
relegating Undermind in the background, save for a quick listen (no,
the album doesn’t sound like the tired work of a group about to break
up) and a look at the lyrics, to see whether they revealed something
about the incoming split. (Absolutely no trace of tension in those session
scenes shown on Specimens Of Beauty, the 26-minute film directed by
Danny Clinch which is included as a bonus DVD with the initial pressing
of the album.)
Talking
about music, it’s easy to call Undermind a complex work of many merits, maybe
not always apparent, nor always too easy to get. An album where not everything
makes full sense, where some musical choices are maybe proof of some (if not
creative, let’s say diplomatic/organizational) empasse.
A few months ago, when I read that
Tchad Blake was
to produce – and later mix – the new album, I was a bit puzzled. Not that
I thought Blake to be underqualified for the job – he has proved to be an
ace in the field of "personalized sounds", working in many guises
– sometimes with Mitchell Froom – on albums by Peter Gabriel, Los Lobos, Tom
Waits, Sheryl Crow, Pearl Jam and Suzanne Vega, my favourite album being the
one released in 1998 by Lisa Germano, titled Slide.
After repeated listenings, I can say my perplexity was justified:
Blake submerged the group in a sea of echoes and reverbs, which don’t always
sound as the best weapons for a group that – though they have worked with
many producers and engineers – has always favoured dry, almost Fripp-like
sound climates (we can also forget the deep bass drum at the start of Seven Below, on Round
Room). When things work (and this happens quite often: as an example listen
to A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing, with its acid, Hendrix-like atmosphere –
phasing, panning and vibrato) everything’s ok. But sometimes Blake’s predilection
for contrast (among the songs, inside the songs) left me with the impression
of something quite a bit disjointed. In one instance – Mike Gordon’s Access
Me, with its strange guitar and drum timbres, and a synth in a "demented
organ" mode – the end result came dangerously close to a "novelty
record". Maybe those who are used at listening (almost) exclusively to
nowadays technical ways of working will find nothing strange here. Thanks
to my "titanic titanium tweeters", I turned up considerably the
volume control of my amplifier, so getting a more accurate representation
of the stereo field.
Starting
from its length (78′), Round Room demonstrated a new enthusiasm, a strong
determination to break conventional rules. While Undermind (51′), though a
perfectly good album in its own right, seems content with what’s feasible
here and now, renouncing (by necessity, not due to impure reasons: a distinction
that’s still very important to me) the tacit pact between "rock music"
and those listeners who are not happy with same old, same old.
The album begins strangely enough, with three tracks – Strange And Subtle
Sounds (Intro), Undermind and the contagious The Connection – which
sound more like being off a Trey Anastasio solo album than performed
by Phish (on the title-track the Fender Rhodes is played by Ray Paczkowsky,
a member of Anastasio’s group). Then, the lift-off: A Song I Heard The
Ocean Sing is really, really excellent (at about 4′ Anastasio plays
a guitar solo that’s quite reminiscent of the single-coil 80s-period
Zappa); Army Of One is a beautiful pianistic ballad sung by Page McConnell
(how strange! the sound is so Round Room); Crowd Control plays "in
rock" a country melody; Scents And Subtle Sounds is an explosive,
"British" thing (the Who?) with a memorable crescendo; a song
that had already appeared on the triple CD Live Phish 07.15.03, the
ballad Secret Smile here greatly benefits of a string section arranged
by Maria Schneider. And this is where the album "really" ends
– even if after that sad song (too sad, perhaps?), as a counterbalancing
measure, the group have added the fun, "a cappella" Grind,
a song that those in the know say to date back to the sessions for the
album Billy Breathes.
Beppe
Colli
©
Beppe Colli 2004
CloudsandClocks.net
| June 20, 2004