Dream/Aktion Unit, Blood Shadow Rampage (Volcanic Tongue)

I nearly got dumped by a girlfriend over Dream/Aktion Unit after she refused to accept that their performance at ATP that year was anything other than just some stupid noise.  I think I may have written something about this incident in another place after it happened, along the lines of “inviting someone to see Dream/Aktion Unit because they quite liked a couple of Sonic Youth songs was like inviting someone to watch Jaws because they quite like swimming in the sea”.  I on the other hand found the performance a thrilling, cathartic, and visually compelling experience.  At that time, the Unit were a quartet – Thurston Moore and Jim O’Rourke from SY, and the Paul Flaherty/Chris Corsano axis.  For their first official release Blood Shadow Rampage (recorded at Stirling’s Le Weekend festival), Jim is out, obviously, and along with a load of shlock-horror imagery we get ex-Charalambides’ Heather Leigh Murray, and the No-Neck Blues Band’s Matt Heyner, on pedal steel and bass respectively.

Blood Shadow Rampage opens with “Birth of the Ghoul” (I’m not sure I like these titles) and the instantly recognisable lazy strumming of an angularly tuned guitar, joined by surprisingly delicate sax squiggles, and arco bass drone.  Corsano and Flaherty soon lock together to drive the tension skywards, with Thurston pinging feedback all over the top like silly string.  “Tales of Entrails” (no, I’ve decided, I don’t like the titles) showpieces the reverberations of what sounds like one of drummer Chris Corsano’s saxophone mouthpiece and shower head excursions. [At this point, I am acutely aware of having written about Chris Corsano a few times this year – such as here.  And here.  And, well, here.  He probably thinks I am stalking him.  I'm not.  Well, I don't think I am.  Am I stalking him?].  An incredible solo from Flaherty starts muscularly like late period ‘Trane, and ends with impossible squeaks.  By the time of next tracks “Buried Alive And Loving It” (actually, that amused me momentarily) and “Brutal Lust” (erm… that sounds too close to rape for my liking) we have truly hit the wall of sonic scree.  We get a breather with a couple of fairly forgettable drone pieces, before the louder-than-anything closer “Here Comes The Fucking Dead” (funny! better!) which appears to have sent the crowd present away in raptures.

I reckon this must have been a great gig to be at, but something doesn’t quite transmit to record.  There is the visual element obviously – we don’t get to see Flaherty, the free jazz Santa Claus, or Thurston dry-humping his amp, or Corsano’s flailing limbs.  Then there is the dynamic of watching members of a crack improvising group studying and reacting to each other.  But more than that, the production at times (probably the product of this being a live recording) renders the bass as nothing more than a throbbing elastic band, with Corsano on occasion reduced to a workman digging in the street outside.  Flaherty and Corsano produced a killer album earlier this year (The Beloved Music).  If Dream/Aktion Unit have achieved anything more useful than ending scores of relationships, it is to help ensure these two have got their props.

Download “Buried Alive and Loving It” here
Listen to more and buy it at Boomkat here