With writing, with theater, with fine arts, and of course with music, true
masters of their art have earned the right to break the rules. They know what
works and what doesn't, and if the Picassos of the world choose to paint outside
the metaphorical lines of their art or their craft, they do it with a skill and
purpose that can yield unexpected and masterful results. Following that Picasso
metaphor, Infidel?/Castro! doesn't simply paint outside the lines - they aren't
even painting on the canvas. Their paint is splattered on the floor and the
ceiling and in their hair - and the bloody canvas is long gone having been
hurled belligerently through the window weeks before the piece was even
conceptualized.
Infidel?/Castro! is the 2-man project of George Korein and Colin Marston, and
their bio accurately describes their sound as "undefineable and uncatagorizeable".
And it is a sound - because if there's one thing missing across the
two-CDs and 88-minutes of Bioentropic Damage Fractal, it's music - in the
traditional sense of the word. Remember those old fashioned concepts of
melody and rhythm? Fugeddaboutit - those things went out the window along
with Picasso's canvas. This record is about the dubious art of noise -
this the place where violent collisions occur between ambient electronica and
fierce experimental noise, between an avant-garde experimental racket and odd
acoustic motifs that build mysterious passages of serene minimalism, of the
microchip and the analog. Its concepts are progressive though it isn't prog, and
it opposes everything traditional though it isn't RIO. It defies genres and
description - it is inaccessible, dissonant, algorithm-generated
post-rock. This is something - but it ain't music. You listen to
music - but you experience this stuff.
It isn't a vocal piece - there isn't any singing and hence no lyrics. And
despite the fleeting appearance of guitars, bass, drums, violin, viola, upright
bass and various wind instruments you couldn't call it an all-instrumental piece
either. Not with all that sonic clashing. Yet it's a concept piece, and
the idea behind the album is bleak and in parts political - although without
prose the only way you can follow the theme is by the song titles like "Bedsores
for G.W.B." (God,how cheesy), "The Extraction Of Delicate Tissue" and
"Temporarily Dissolving Into Plasma During A Moment To One's Self".
Track 4, "Intrusive Imagination" is 7 minutes of an eerie high pitched
industrial-electronic noise. Track 6 "Bedridden" starts 15 minutes into disc 1,
and delivers the very first inkling of what most of us would call music.
At least - that's true of the first and the last 3 minutes. The middle 3
minutes is another cacophony of clashing diodes - probably the way your computer
sounds when it's having a heat seizure. The final 20-minute track on disc 2 is
led by a few mournful notes cleanly and repeatedly picked on an acoustic guitar,
ending the album on a dark but tranquil note that will leave you wondering -
what the hell just happened!
The two band members each have varying degrees of formal university level
music training but you might still wonder if they have any actual musical
ability. If they do, it certainly isn't demonstrated here - and it would
be interesting to hear these guys inject some real music into this mish-mash -
because then we could more easily determine if they're the musical equivalent of
Picasso, or if they're just poseurs with more electronic gizmos than
imagination. So - do we think it's genius or idiocy? Did we love it or
hate it? Should you buy this or avoid it? The answer is ... yes.
You have to give these guys credit for having the courage to experiment, to
create new sonic concepts that you've never heard before, and for their wild
off-the-wall adventurous ideas. But approach it with caution. You might
love this stuff. Most people will hate it.
Track Listing:
Cancer (Disc 1)
1. The Onset Of Life
2. The New Delrium
3. DAMAGE FRACTAL SERIES I
4. Dismantle
5. Intrusive Imagination
6. Incorrect Reassembly
7. Bedridden
8. (In)voluntary Emotional Response
Cancer: Decay (Disc 2)
1. Bedsores (for G.W.B.)
2. Involuntary Physical Response
3. DAMAGE FRACTAL SERIES II
4. Smear Contradicting Elimination
5. Insalubrity Serves Me
6. The Extraction Of Delicate Tissue
7. DAMAGE FRACTAL SERIES III
8. Cylindrical Bereavement Summarizing Its Orientations
9. Temporarily Dissolving Into Plasma During A Moment To One's Self
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