Sightings Absolutes Rarity
'This Jello tastes how you look.' Unfortunately, the next conscious thought I had after my slurred uttering of that phrase revolved around how my cousin's living room ceiling had too many tiles for me to count without getting sick in an adjacent fireplace.
Mouth dry and stomach unsettled, my first drunken experience-- at the tender age of 14-- had left me queasy, weak, and saddled with an inability to drink anything with the word 'orange' in it for the next five years. Happily, aside from gaining valuable self-knowledge regarding the recuperative abilities of the teenage liver, the experience succeeded in teaching me the fear and respect due to one of mankind's most blinding furies-- the homemade concoction that is 'white lightning.' Condor Serial Card Drivers.
Backwoods and brutish, moonshine is intended neither for the faint-of-heart nor those unwilling to engage in a modicum of experimentation, as it requires a certain amount of what my papa would call 'gumption' in order to acclimate oneself to both the taste and effect of this pernicious beverage. Years later I would approach Sightings' album Absolutes with a similar sense of cautionary adventure, preparing myself for a beautiful assault that I would inevitably and repeatedly lose myself in, regardless of the consequences. Anchored in the Cartesian-related premise that pain is the only thought process that will not betray one's reality, Absolutes begins with the organic-by-way-of-savageness static feedback of 'White Keys'.
Creating an awkward and psychotic 'twist,' the instrumentation of guitarist Mark Morgan and bassist Richard Hoffman slowly becomes blurred as the song progresses, the only constant amid the cacophony being Morgan's buried yelps of 'woo-hoo' and 'ah-ah' that eventually collide in a gigantic screech signaling the conclusion of the disc's preface. 'Infinity of Stops' picks up directly thereafter, as the static pulse is refurbished with a clipping beat courtesy of drummer John Lockie and some squealing guitar manipulations that are similarly hacked to bits by the underlying bass line. This too inescapably falls victim to the approaching fallout of the bare percussion, a reluctant follower of the chaos that recently cleared the path for its creation and release. Given the pummeling offensive the band tends to rely on, it's unexpected that Sightings outfit multiple tracks with what sounds like the sophisticated gamelan-influenced playing style of the Indonesian Isles. Perhaps as a move to admonish comments regarding the band as a second rate Boredoms or Pussy Galore-- or perhaps as sheer coincidence-- 'Bishops' begins with a tangible and lasting beat, in itself a shock coming from the No New York-influenced band, that eventually waylays an example of such an Eastern-tinged rhythm into the high end of the mix. As Morgan continues to do his best John Lydon impression, uttering nonsensical phrases and monosyllabic sounds, the Javanese-esque melody eventually fades to echo only to reappear transformed in the following track, 'Canadian Money'.
Syncopating from within the belly of a steel factory, the metal drums rule the track as a rapid-fire attack of humming and pounding fight and win the battle to keep above the current of rising guitar fallouts and steady bass-drones. Further rallying against cries of homogeneity in a field of Rock 'N Roll where such accusations are rampant and unpleasantly expected, Sightings does not rest in presenting a bevy of tracks that display their knack for subtle interplay. Possibly an inverted political message, 'Right Side of the Hall' is a D.C.-hardcore tune at heart, with vocals channeled as an animal growl and a pop-rhythm section so simple and catchy, it would be a crime to bury it beneath all of that feedback-- if in the end it wasn't such a beautiful statement of artistic freedom to do so. Is further evidence of the group's pop mastery, as the track exemplifies in forty-five seconds what Man.or Astroman? Have been attempting to accomplish for the past four years-- an Elvis Presley beach-song characteristically played by the heavy machinery of a high-rise construction crew. The track exists in stark contrast to the veritable jam sessions of 'Anna Mae Wong' and 'Reduction', both of which surpass the seven-minute mark during the unraveling of their respective sound. In the former, the group uses the moments between starts and stops to develop a suspenseful tension that eventually becomes a pattern of instrumental call-and-response bringing to mind comparisons with the early improvisation of jazz and the blues.
The latter track further builds upon this, but instead of a silent backdrop for the voices to argue against 'Reduction' provides a sobering cadence, a beat that sputters out modestly in a manner befitting a composition that is showy only in its lack of pretense. A difficult album to take in, one should not disregard Absolutes based on a single listen, or even three or four. Like the outline diagrammed on the cover for the production of sweet-corn hooch, the rewards of the disc increase exponentially with repeated listens and time. Not the sound of something new, but merely the sound of something done right, Sightings has hit upon an extraordinary groove, one they will hopefully ride out to its pure and uncomplicated end.
Absolutes, an Album by Sightings. Released in 2003 on Load (catalog no. LOAD 048; CD). Genres: Noise Rock. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAQWT IO 9. IN MEMORIAMDouglas Adams(1. Sightings Absolutes Rarity Coloring. Years later, when she was in her twenties, she disclosed this unhappy fact to her parents, and her mother was aghast:. If you are one of them, this book is for.
Mark Morgan, Richard Hoffman, and Jon Lockie have produced a whole mess of brain-wrecking, mercilessly distorted horror over the course of the decade-plus they’ve been together. Albums like 2002’s Michigan Haters and Sightings, 2003’s Absolutes, and 2005’s End Times are first-rate scorchers to rival the scorchiest of them. But delving into their back catalogue over the past few weeks, I find their most impressive, most unsettling efforts to be those more relatively subdued. Sightings play like a rock band possessed, a traditional power trio of guitar, bass, and drums hijacked for some sinister, alien transmissive purpose — and it’s ridiculously exciting music when you can really make out just how their DNA has been rearranged. City of Straw is the first Sightings record since 2007’s Through the Panama, and it’s an awesome document of a band exercising its hard-earned, insular synergy with a sense of decision more threatening than the stickiest noise blast one could conjure. On every track here, each of the individual players in Sightings is a force to be reckoned with.
Morgan handles his tsunamic guitar squall with a surprising, painterly grace and an excellent sense of timing, while his vocals reel with a classic, drunken swagger that burns with malignancy. Hoffman is an athlete on the bass guitar, bouncing swiftly from pummeling, angular figures to slinking, emotive grooves. Lockie is tempestuous on both acoustic and electronic drums, capable of delivering mind-boggling patterns and showers of fills that are feats of precision and endurance. Above all, however, Sightings are capable of conducting an energy that transcends their individual accomplishments.
When they rock, on tracks like “Jabber Queens” and “Saccharine Traps,” they work up such careening momentum it might seem as though they were losing control if they weren’t able to stop on a dime, break down, and then explode again on a whim. On less raucous jams like “We All Amplify” and the fluid, ominous “Hush” — where the band stretch out and allow for a little more space to creep in — it’s easy to hear how attentive they are to each other.
While Lockie often lays in the rhythmic backbone for the song, Morgan and Hoffman weave organically in and out of the pocket, the whole band playing around one another as much as they play together in the traditional sense. Yet while the compositional logic is often internal, it’s performed with enough direction and certainty that it never feels aimless or incoherent. In interviews, Sightings have dodged the “meaningless ghettos” of ‘noise rock’ and ‘industrial,’ characterizing themselves simply as rock musicians. If Through the Panama hadn’t already, City of Straw makes it perfectly clear just why: Sightings don’t seem interested in limiting themselves to the tropes or pandering to the audiences of any one musical subculture.
They may produce a pretty solid din, but clarity and relative quiet also look excellent on these guys, and the singular chemistry they’ve developed over their years of playing together is nearly peerless. It’s a very rare thing these days to hear a record that confounds clear comparison and toys so effectively with the boundaries of rock musicianship. City of Straw is such a record. Tar and Pine 02. Jabber Queens 03.
City of Straw 04. Saccharine Traps 05. We All Amplify 06. Weehawken 07. Serial Ve Crack Bulma Programming.
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