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Pacific 231 & Lieutenant Caramel, "Aunt Sally"
Pierre Jolivet (Pacific 231) and Philippe Blanchard (Lieutenant Caramel) have both been active in experimental music since the mid 1980s, and this is not their first collaboration. However, Aunt Sally is one of those albums that, even after sitting with it for a while and a number of repeated listenings, I still have mixed feelings about. Some moments come across as brilliantly absurdist pairings of cut up music and junk noise. Then there are moments that feel simply like random bits of sound slapped together haphazardly, justifying hat often leveled complaint against this sort of challenging art.
The pieces that open and close the album are the most impressive, largely because both are live performances.Album opener "Yellow House in Beirut," recorded in Lebanon in 2012, mixes in some French spoken word pieces with dissonant noises and fragmented sounds into a chaotic, clattering mass."L'Autre Massacre," a performance from Dublin in 2011, is a bit harsher with violent stabs and outbursts of sonic junk amidst a world of echoes and sound fragments.
Between these performances are a series of studio recordings that, due to the fact they were subject to overdubs and replications, often seem too unfocused and random for their own good.The low frequency rumble and guitar feedback of "Bagliore" helps it to stand out, but the overuse of random cut-up bits end up seeming more like filler than anything with deliberate artistic intent.
"Angela Palnep Chu" features a selection of sampled musical elements that are identifiable within the chaos, but with the heavy processing it becomes hard to fully discern.Mixed in with the other messy detritus and spoken word, it has a sense feel to it, but also drifts into directionless knob twiddling that drones on for a bit too long.The looped, violent sounds and harsh outbursts of "Birolo" also are a plus, but within the vacuum cleaner din of white noise, its power is somewhat diluted.
There are some captivating moments to be heard on Aunt Sally, and these moments are what motivated me to return to this album on multiple occasions.The problem is that between these high points are passages that seem directionless and too random, and I caught my attention drifting away from the album.There are some excellent segments of this album interspersed throughout.Without the editing though, the disc just sounds bloated and, like an overly long film, it diminishes the impact of the highlights.
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