Geoff Soule
A Wild Man Brandishing an Uprooted Tree
[Supermegacorporation; 2001]
Rating: 7.9
This little jewel of a CD is exactly the kind of release that's in danger of
slipping through the cracks. Aren't you grateful to have us catchers in the rye
here at Pitchfork rescuing innocent little artistic statements like these from
the chasm of obscurity?
Limited to 500 copies and lovingly packaged, A Wild Man Brandishing an Uprooted
Tree is the minimally heralded and seemingly intentionally obscure solo outing
from Geoff Soule, the drummer of Fuck (who should in no way be confused with the
God of Fuck). And while, in the pantheon of solo albums from drummers, this one
doesn't deliver the goods like, say, almost anything by Robert Wyatt, it beats
Peter Criss hands down-- even in the arena of cheese-factor, as Wild Man
comes packaged with a miniature book of haiku detailing, level by level, the
classic video game "Mr. Do," accompanied by full-color illustrations.
This same kind of perplexing attention to detail (or rather, attention to perplexing
details) carries over to the music, which was modestly recorded on a four-track at
home. Wild Man is nothing that's going to single-handedly breathe renewed
life into the beleaguered genre of lo-fi, but it easily trumps anything Fuck has
released since 1997's Pardon My French.
Cramming angular indie rock, harsh post-punk freakouts, and folky ramblings into a
highly digestible 24½ minutes is no easy feat, but this record does it by striking
a deal between tossed-off elegant ease and careful concision. Even the brief
instrumental interludes don't come off as mere filler-- hell, they make up some
of the album's best moments, and seem very purposefully selected to ease the
transition between the wildly dissimilar styles presented by the "proper" songs.
It's all carried off with a similar kind of fractured feeling of
running-off-in-too-many-directions-at-once that characterizes Skip Spence's
Oar-- a vision spelled out with the language of surrealism.
"Ghost," probably the mellowest track, leads off the album with an almost country
vibe as Soule sings, "My life is a ghost's life, standing at the window watching,
waiting." This is following by a jarring guitar workout fittingly titled "Punk"
that has the treble cranked to 11, and sounds something like a lost track off
Wire's Pink Flag.
The weakest track is next, the very Seattle-circa-'92 sounding "Kant," but
fortunately, this is followed by a wonderful series of songs, beginning with
"Ur," which reminded me why I still love a lot of lo-fi, bedroom-recorded indie
rock, no matter how much garbage is released under that mantle. Soule moans, "You
are one six billionth falling around the sun," while a bassline lurches, followed
by a little bit of planned sloppiness on the guitar. No drums. Nice and simple,
but effective. Next is the highly Sebadoh-ish "Stay," dishing up lines like, "Oh,
your hair is pawful and my paw is so careful." Again, the key is that the song
doesn't outstay its welcome.
Two pleasant enough, though not too outstanding, instrumental songs come up next,
both sounding something like Wowee Zowee-era Pavement. "Monkey" has a slightly
goofy guitar riff propelling it along, but then again, it's kind of an intentionally
goofy song to begin with, so it works. "Vegas" ends the album on a note similar to
the opener: observations like, "Is my arm around your waist? Is my head clear to
the dump?" delivered in such a straightfaced manner as to elude to some kind of
inner logic. It's these kinds of moments that present the album as a riddle to be
solved.
And the most surprising thing about the album as a whole is how long it holds out,
revealing its secrets slowly, remaining puzzling enough to bear repeated listens.
It arrives with all the outward trappings of a vanity item for hardcore Fuck fans,
and with almost no fanfare-- but when given time to present its case, it ends up
being quite a bit more. All this from the drummer (of all people) of a mid-level
indie rock band whose catalog is hit-or-miss at best. Sometimes you get more than
you expect.
-Jason Nickey, April 5th, 2002