Death Unit at Coco66 in Greenpoint, January 29, 2010

At the midpoint of the last decade, it seemed possible that noise music was ready to reach an audience beyond a core group of hardcore scene aficionados, record collector nerds, other musicians, fringe Euro art enthusiasts, and Midwestern basement hangers-on. Wolf Eyes toured with Sonic Youth and released the epochal Burned Mind after signing with Sub Pop. Carlos Giffoni inaugurated his first No Fun Fest with a mind-boggling line-up of artists from all corners of the scene. Giffoni’s own No Fun Productions tracked the development of noise from 2005 onwards with a carefully curated selection of just over fifty releases in five years, a surprisingly lean number of offerings from a scene known for its sometimes comical prolificacy. Lightning Bolt was gaining some overground attention with a brand of hyper-charged punk that merged noise and thrash metal with the strong aesthetic appeal of the legendary Fort Thunder collective.

In the intervening five years, noise became institutionalized. In 2009, Giffoni earned his MFA at the New School and announced plans to scrap the 2010 edition of No Fun Fest after last year’s sold out weeks in advance and came complete with a screening of moving image work by noise artists at The New Museum. But noise never broke through, even if sensitive white kids everywhere maintained their death grip on mainstream indie rock aesthetics. Some long-running concerns broke up (Yellow Swans), others drifted into puzzling noise-dance hybrids (Black Dice), but most — from veterans Merzbow and The Dead C to the ubiquitous Wolf Eyes — soldiered on. In the waning days of the ’00s, vintage synthesizer worship took center stage, a sign that the harshest and most brutal practitioners of pure noise may be on their way out.

It was against this backdrop that five acts descended on Greenpoint’s Coco66 on Friday evening, one of coldest nights so far this winter. The bill felt like a throwback to the halcyon noise days of the early ’00s: two members of Wolf Eyes, long-time scene supporter Thurston Moore’s Northampton Wools–a duo with Bill Nace that explores the outer limits of harsh, abstract guitar squeal–and headliner Death Unit’s long-awaited return.

Opener Dog Lady (né Mike Collino) kicked off the evening in fine form with some solo electronics; brief at every turn, the set culminated in a distorted violin piece, drawing an inevitable but very favorable comparison with C. Spencer Yeh, also in attendence. Next up was Spykes, a solo project by Wolf Eyes’ John Olson. Given the Wolf Eyes pedigree and the project’s name, I was anticipating an offering of harsh noise. After a tentative introduction full of oppressive percussion gestures, however, Olson settled into a far more ambient groove. A cassette deck furnished a sonic background for improvisation on a variety of wind instruments, including a distinctive, two-pronged, flute-like contraption. The result: a memorable, surprisingly low-key preamble.
Cover art for Nate Young’s Regression lp, on iDeal

Nate Young’s Regression project followed suit. Young sat at a folding table loaded down with gear, a microphone perched conveniently at his side, the above banner hanging behind him. Combined with the venue’s rudimentary but effective laser-light staging, this visual made for a kind of “satanic planetarium” atmosphere. Beginning with a few indecipherable words–spoken over treated tapes–and progressing into a not entirely unpleasant ’70s horror film groove, this short piece was an effective reflection of the material that appeared on his excellent Regression LP last year. Ten minutes in, Young uttered a plaintive “Well, that’s my jam,” and the crowd responded with a roar of applause.

Next up, Thurston Moore and Bill Nace’s guitar duo Northampton Wools provided what was, by some measure, the harshest and most uncompromising set of the night. Beginning with some casual tinkling of the guitar strings, then swirling ever deliberately toward full on white noise squall, they musicians unleashed the full spectrum of guitar autopsy techniques, from running a small metal bowl up and down the neck to simply beating on the pickups. Northampton Wools dared the audience to turn away, and a few did. Due to Moore’s notoriety, even his most abstract and challenging performances draw a small army of obnoxious photographers, determined to capture every gesture and grimace of the lanky living legend while studiously ignoring visual documentation of any of the other acts. This depressing state of affairs led me to remark to my concert-going companion that they should regulate the sale of Digital SLRs to thirty-something self-styled “photographers” the same way they regulate handgun sales to former felons. Regardless, Moore and Nace succeeded in a transgressive performance that was a definitive example of Moore in abstract guitar mode.

Finally, the moment of truth arrived. Inactive for years, just seeing Death Unit set up their gear was enough to get even a hardened scene veteran excited. Once Giffoni set off the first of many distorted waves of electronic scree and Sullivan unleashed his first riff, it was clear that this Death Unit relaunch would borrow equally from noise’s past and present. Unfortunately, the high-end of Giffoni and Sullivan’s compelling assault drowned out much of the drum work Tremaine and Corsano were unleashing beneath. The percussion duo seemed less dynamic than in their other projects, for the most part beating away at their kits and stirring up an unfocused racket. The opening piece succeeded as a relatively speedy hit-and-run of overwhelming volume and unhinged aggression. But the much lengthier second set — despite kicking off with a very promising techno loop from Giffoni, strongly reminiscent of his impeccable No Fun Acid project — failed to cohere into a satisfying whole. That said, there were certainly moments in the extended jam where everything fell into place, and Death Unit became more than the sum of its parts. These fleeting glimpses–when Giffoni’s thick bass sound punctuated Sullivan’s punishing guitar gestures, for example, or Tremaine and Corsano settled into a propulsive lock-step groove–were enough to make the whole experience worthwhile.

Successful improvised music requires countless hours of practice and a near-telepathic sense of shared vision. The four members of Death Unit have distinguished themselves in the underground through years of relentless touring and by pushing boundaries of their individual aesthetic visions, so it’s natural to expect great things when they come together. It would be wonderful if Death Unit had the time and inclination to rehearse until they became true equals in a group dynamic; but for the time being, the music they create together, although composed of many brief glimpses of greatness, is merely very good. This is by no means an insult to the players, and the entire evening served as evidence that wherever noise has been in the past, many of its highest-profile practitioners have a very bright future.

Words: Max Burke
Photo: Max Burke

Tags: Bill Nace, Brian Sullivan, Carlos Giffoni, Chris Corsano, Coco66, Death Unit, Dog Lady, John Olson, Mike Collino, Nate Young, Northampton Wools, Regression, Spykes, Thurston Moore, Trevor Tremaine, Wolf Eyes

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 1:17 am and is filed under Portraits, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.