2 out of 5

Label: Cantaloupe Music

Produced by: JG Thirlwell, Mike Tierney

Given that JG Thirlwell has fussed with big band instrumentation going back to his skronkiest 80s Foetus days, in a career that’s blossomed to encompass orchestra-sounding ballast for soundtracks like Venture Bros. and Archer, not to mention however many collabos and pseudonyms have produced explorations into ambience, and electronica, and more… it’s not really a question of whether or not Thirlwell is capable of writing for a string quartet; clearly, he is. But what he does with that writing on Dystonia, played by MIVOS Quartet, is more questionable – at least to my ears in the many passes I gave it, trying to find purchase with the recording. It just feels like a set of songs on which JG didn’t really know how to stop grinding, extending them all beyond logical peaks and stopping points without much benefit. And while the artist is obviously known for some of his “extremes” in his style, I don’t find his works to be overwrought this often – that is, where it takes over a whole project. Perhaps it was writing to be performed by someone else; perhaps it was writing to a comparatively minimalist format. Perhaps I’m just not being patient enough, or I’m not familiar enough with the form to recognize what’s actually a very practiced structure. I have been listening to Thirlwell’s many iterations for years, and, as essentially mentioned, I couldn’t feel this one out.

Dystonia is four tracks for a string quartet, plus a sort of interstitial track. And fans of JG – myself included – will not dislike the base elements here, with a lot of striking discordance played off of itself that achieves harmony, and a generally aggressive, staccato playing approach that instantly generates energy. However, within this are the issues I took, beyond the overlong nature of the songs: while I can maybe see that Thirlwell wanted guitar music, but played by strings, it equates to an always-elevated tone that doesn’t take advantage of the form (and is also why the runtimes are problematic): there’s no counterpoint to the songs; no space. They all hit a similarly frantic, sustained pace and just stay there. It’s only on Heliophobia that Thirlwell lets the quartet sound more traditional, and when this is used in combination with the more staccato, guitar-y stuff, it’s brilliant. …Until it goes on for too long again, without much ebb and flow. The concluding track is able to reuse some of this same energy, though.

Maybe with shorter, or more varied tracks; maybe geared more toward a traditional sound that I realize probably ran counter to the concept, I would’ve dug this. Unfortunately, it ends up feeling too stuck in a particular mode