Volcano the Bear
The One Burned Ma
[Misra]
Rating: 7.0
Albert Einstein once said, "I do not know with what kinds of weapons the
Third World War will be fought, but the Fourth World War will be fought
with sticks and stones."
Volcano the Bear's The One Burned Ma could serve as the soundtrack
to Ken Burns' documentary of that final conflict. This is music for The
Day After, what plays as you survey the damage, gaze out over the
endless fields of corpses and debris, and ask with a tear in your eye,
"Why?"
Though some of the music here is sad and cinematic, Volcano the Bear's
ability to push things Beyond Thunderdome really comes from their
sophisticated understanding of ugliness. The middle section of The
One Burned Ma somehow reminds me of watching a river of raw sewage
rush by; I am fascinated by the complexity of the brew, with all manner
of decaying trash floating about, but it's just so much more pleasant to
turn away, or, better yet, run. But if I were to give in to the instinct
to avert my eyes, I'd miss the beauty that occasionally bobs to the
surface, made so much more powerful by its proximity to the vile.
The One Burned Ma begins with a gorgeous passage of this order.
"The Color of My Find" is an epic funeral dirge, with a droning harmonium
playing against a gently swaying violin. As crashing glass intrudes, a
lone electric guitar emerges and begins to pick out some forgotten folk
melody. If it sounds like I'm describing a Godspeed You Black Emperor!
album, I apologize, but there is indeed a marked similarity to the
approach on this first track.
But sharp differences between the bands quickly appear. Volcano the Bear
offer little hope for transcendence through the bulk of The One Burned
Ma. The middle section in particular is unrelentingly harsh and
strange, varying plenty in texture but never stepping out into the light.
It's a droner's delight, as sound effects, voices and abused instruments
weave in and out of the mix and tracks bleed darkly into one another.
Occasionally, the heavy-handed manipulations become a bit much; "She Sang
a Song of Norway," for example, rocks back and forth on two notes, with
a distorted, taped voice played at ¼ speed. It's a bit of a cheesy effect,
and similar strands of obviousness occasionally upset the flow of the
record.
But a handful of fascinating elements tip the scales slightly in The
One Burned Ma's favor. The sawing, atonal strings of "Ped is Feet"
yield to the weird and great "Reah's Mort," which sounds like an
accompaniment to an Elvin hunting party in Middle Earth. This track is
one of several with a medieval feel linking it to the primitive jams
of German psychedelic bands like Amon Düül and Ash Ra Tempel. More
conventionally pretty is "Meisheishorses," which features an untreated
voice singing a slow melody that seems pulled from every fourth syllable
of a Gregorian chant.
The One Burned Ma is a rocky ride, and unfortunately one with
several dull moments. But when the percolating electronics of the closing
track, "Digging for Opera," finally fade into the distance, I only think
of the abrasiveness and tedium of what came before in relation to the
purity of this single beautiful sound.
-Mark Richard-San