5 out of 5

Label: ugEXPLODE / Skin Graft

Produced by: The Flying Luttenbachers

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyy’know what makes The Flying Luttenbachers so consistently awesome?  They never stop moving.  Even on tracks that are more sound experiment than freak-out – the reedy Sparrow’s Thin Lot or the ‘minimalist’ The Necessary Impossibility of Determinism – the group is shuffling elements about, bouncing sounds off each other, readjusting.  And while, yes, part of the group’s m.o. is to do as the album title commands, that doesn’t equate to a non-stop barrage – moments where things congeal into an actual jazz rhythm (the bookends of Splürge or Tiamat en Arc) show that the group knows their jazz, which is what gives them the license to destroy it; and listeners with an ear for the Lutten’s types of freak outs will easily spot the restraint on stop/start tracks like Dance of the Lonely Hyenas.  There’s just a general mindfulness of sound that the group possesses; whereas some equally bombastful acts take it upon themselves to destroy your hearing, a Lutten recording is rarely aurally offensive – it never breaks free of the sense that these are humans playing their tools hard and fast.  This grounding makes the jams accessible, even as they’re pummeling every moment into the ground.

Which, despite my pointing out otherwise above, is certainly the defining approach here: offer something like a rhythm, like tap dance all over it with jackhammers.  The recording / presentation is all things at once: sloppy and yet precise, raw and yet full.  Even when there’s so much going on you can no longer discern the difference between horn and drums and bass and guitar, you believe these boys are doing this all on purpose; that it’s all under control.

It’s a devastatingly awesome thing to hear.

The roots are jazz, but from the few seconds into Demonic Velocities/20,000,000 Volts when it kicks into overdrive, you’ll realize you’re dealing with the forerunners of the noise rock scene, and one whose defining recordings – this one included – still kick the pants offa’ their peers and followers.