30/09/2024
THE DOBIE/MADRY PROJECT Body Up (Requiem Records 138 | 2017): The
promo material smells like a full ashtray, no wonder, Dobie is
known as 'Smokin' Jon'. Again he uses his, thanks to Pieces Of Brain, good
connections to Poland. The Dobie Gorzycki thing "Nothing" (2015) had
been released by the cult label in Piaseczno, the sound artist Tomasz
Mądry came into play via Tone Industria in Warsaw, where "Six
Brain in 2007. Together
, they created two half-hour tracks through the channels of the Internet and
involved more and more comrades-in-arms: Amy Knoles (E.A.R. Unit) on
electronic percussion, Dan Maurer (David Cross & Sonicphonics tested) on
drums, keyboardist Alex Maguire (formerly with Sean Bergin and Elton Dean,
most recently with Doubt on Moonjune), on saxophone Adrian Northover (Dobie's
buddy with B-Shops for the Poor and the Sonicphonics), the Venetian Mauro
Sambo on saxophone & gongs, Robert Iwanik (ex-Krzycz, ex-Rope) & Brad
Smarjesse (both now in Seattle with Alchimia), one with bass & voice, the
other with EFX), but above all Mądry's buddy Łukasz Myszkowski
(grind corevocaist with Sparagmos and Antigama) and as well as Dobie with
guitar & soundscapes. This mixture resulted in a soundscape in which
thunder, a soprano sax blowing away in trilling fringes, guitar drones
and nettling riffs, pulsating electric waves, percussive threatening gestures and
tubular bells overwhelm the screen of imagination. Think of the 30
hertz trip by Jah Wobble & Evan Parker, Phantom City, Spring Heel
Jack, but more from the electronic side. To immerse yourself in a
silence in which only the bass plucks over percussive rumbling. The heart trembles
on the lips of Northover, until another curtain of intoxication descends
to rattling tam-tam, thunder, Morse code, the hallucination of a
tribal party in eerie twilight, pecking blows, interwoven with
the lamenting sound of the soprano. The other Dreamscape resembles the first as
the moon resembles itself, only without the saxophone. Eerie electronic
clouds roll booming, buzzing, fluted by keyboards, as
a timpani grinder, the tubular bell with a long reverberation. A guitar
briefly shows its saw teeth, then again bare, gray dreamscape, gloomily
crammed or simply fermenting in itself. A keyboard crawls
spider-legged through the dark ambient picture, the bass molles abyssal, and even
with binoculars there is no silver lining in sight. I'm tempted
to call this consistent Doom Wave. As if the octopus in his deep
dream or the Sibyl who sees Europe's future had hatched it.
