2 out of 5

Label: Skin Graft Records

Produced by: AIDS Wolf

Uh… damn.

Right.

So.

I can’t really listen to this thing. I’ve been down with every AIDS Wolf release to this point – if to various extents – and have, I think, a pretty good tolerance (and appreciation of) noise rock in general. But Ma Vie Banale Avant-Garde – which perhaps tellingly translates as “My banal avant-garde life” – is a step too far in a particular direction for my tastes, becoming just a wash of noise without focus, which can also be fine, except this somewhat feels without intention.

Which is ironic, since there apparently was both a focus and intention to create a sound of “polyrhythm and flowing, elastic tempos;” if I’m stretching for an explanation, maybe it’s that that agenda removes some of the freewheeling energy that shaped boisterousness into songs, and moves AIDS Wolf more squarely towards art rock. And yeah, I tend not to like art rock, as it becomes concept over content.

We experienced some aspects of this before on AW’s teamup with Athletic Automaton, on which some of the collabo tracks felt like a melting pot of everything, which averaged out to not having definition; Ma Vie, across its 24 tracks, doesn’t have that album’s buoy of other, non-collabo songs which provided some structure, and since this is also AIDS Wolf solo, it can’t be excused as having too many musicians in the room. (Again, it’s the opposite: we’re down to less musicians than previous AW albums, as they’d pared down to three from four members.)

There are some reviewers out there who’ve suggested order emerges from the chaos in various ways; I’m sure that’s possible with different ears than mine, though I did test that mine were still working by going back to my other AW discs, and they still rock and skronk desirably. So this one just isn’t for me, I suppose.

It does seem right that the group fizzled out shortly after this. In my own reviews, I kept poking at the “they sound like Arab on Radar!” vibe of the band (meant complimentary, but still), and this does feel like a purposeful attempt to push as far afield of that within the AIDS Wolf shtick as possible, it just over-corrects in a way, and teeters into formless noise, with tracks that all hit at a certain level of clatter and are too short to let things be immersive.

I suppose I can listen to this, as the noise isn’t abrasive, and the music does wander into some brief bursts of head-bobbing wooziness, but it’s more that I don’t want to listen to it, as it doesn’t do anything effectively enough to merit hanging around for too long.

Then again, maybe this will be one of those magic albums that I play again 20 years from now, and I question why 20-years-past me couldn’t hear the gold.