Original Silence - The First Original Silence (Smalltown Superjazz)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Original Silence are sax player Mats Gustaffson and drummer Paal Nilssen love of The Thing, Terri Ex of The Ex on guitar, Massimo Pupillo of Zu on bass, electronics from Jim O'Rourke and extra guitar work from Thurston Moore of Soni... oh, you know who Thurston Moore is. And that list of names alone should be enough to get fans of improvisational, experiemental or even slightly alternative rock cacking their pants in anticipation.
There are two tracks on the collective's debut album, 'The First Original Silence', a record obsessed with improvising at a blistering pace unfamiliar to many others practicing in the field. The first, 'If Light Has No Age, Time Has No Shadow', lasts for nine Earth minutes. The second, 'In The Name of the Law', lasts for forty six. Sure, there are different movements, instruments, moods and sounds displayed throughout the course of the two, but they sound pretty much the same. They have to, because the point of this improvisational, instrumental troupe is to see what happens when people with no plans just exclusively rock out all the time. And do nothing else. Until they're finished.
As such, it sounds completely f**king barmy. It's primal rock and roll, far more primal than the stuff Chuck Berry was playing, but importantly, definitely as rock and roll. It might even be more rock and roll. It's as if this is what was happening before the likes of Berry, Little Richard and Elvis Presley decided to put all of these killer sounds in to some kind of coherent order. This is the primordial sludge from which music as we know it was formed. When Chuck Berry was searching between radio stations to find rock and roll, this was the noise in between. What Original Silence do is devolve, they channel the spirits of the first musicians, the people who would just bash shit for the hell of it, and spend a good hour bashing shit for the hell of it.
It's totally confrontational, it's devoid of anything at all mainstream, but yet it's not particularly high brow. If you've ever played an out of tune guitar, loudly, there's a lot you can love in this. They yelp like motherf**kers for the whole disc. And though it's all intelligently played, at no point are they trying merely to be clever for cleverness's sake. At no point are they doing anything other than rocking out as hard as their limbs and lungs will let them. They're strumming their guitars with their balls, the whole time through. And the sound hurts as much as that image suggests.
Sure, you'll probably be able to count the times you're able to listen to the whole thing from beginning to end on one hand. But occasionally, throughout your life of listening to things you can tap your foot to, sing along to, make love to, you'll put this on and connect with the start of all civilisation once again. It's the sound of a band trying to rediscover the sound of the big bang in order to kick start something new. And in that sense, it's pretty much essential.
Oh, and, like, go Smalltown Superjazz! Label of the year...
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