Local Music Reviews
jacked up Johnson
the gas
Street: 08.01
Self-publishing
Jacked Johnson = Daniel Johnston + Damien Hirst + David Lynch x Dadaism
*Sounds of Sazerac Rye being poured into a snifter glass, a quick inhale, a quick look back, a sip and the glass slamming onto the floor. Slow exhale* …Alright, here we go!
There is a big but sometimes overlooked difference between underground and outsider art. Underground is the beginning of a creative journey, with beloved fans keeping their eyes and ears open, searching for a public place. Outsider art, however, is special. It is primal, chaotic, messy, but emotionally personal at its core. Think of Daniel Johnston’s 1983 Hello, how are you? cassette that is still unfinished, but started by the frazzled energy of a nervous breakdown. When I listen to these kinds of albums, I get the same goosebumps when I flip through Bryan Lewis Saunders‘ drug-induced self-portraits or looking at the harmful homemade goods of Russian citizens during the collapse of the Soviet Union – this is as real as it gets! Then comes Afakasi Yardcore trio Jacked Johnson with their fourth album the gas this leaves me a little torn. But if I’m the type of person who reviews pretty much everything that comes my way (and I mean EVERYTHING), I have to comply.
This album is a hodgepodge of sounds and words. Lead singer Val Brown wanders evil, Darkhold spell, while slide guitarist/drummer Andrew Maguire and bassist Johannes Hoang swirl around a punky crunch with plenty of experimental alt-rock. When it comes to full-on atmosphere, the style changes like mood rings. No track can stay in one style for a minute, which is good since most songs stay under the three-minute mark. These quick morsels sound corrupted and damaged, like half-baked voice memos from found footage of the Marble Hornets. Tracks like “Government Soccer Motel St St Room 1” rise strong and proud, with saxophone drones in the background and an eerie, almost galactic wee-woo reverb. All of a sudden, the echo machine’s fierce assault attacks without warning… and now my headphones are across the room. I see they’re keeping us on our toes.
As for Brown’s lyrical ciphering, in many ways it is largely unconscious. At the height of the 1920s Surrealist art movement, a kind of poetry exercise helped Dada artists “get the juices flowing.” The exercise involved cutting up newspaper articles with a butcher knife and gluing the striped segments together to form a free-flowing combination of nonsensical psyche. That’s how I feel when I immerse myself in Brown’s long-drawn-out lyrics. Take passages from “PIPING MOON,” where the unconventional layout of coherent word art is jettisoned. “Piping moon gallop to the fireslide / Data crush into greedyence, addendum amended / Plant the flag through the lifeguard’s sternum / (Need) anything from the supermarket?” Her ballad of daydream and shitpost emulates a larger idea… what the idea is, I’m not sure.
On the other hand, I don’t agree with this album. Part of me loves the audible rush that appeals to all five senses – something that can also be found on Utah’s museum of contemporary art. It’s a means for the band to be as loud and as bold as they need to be to restart. the bare, bleached bones of what music is. There is, however, a niche vulture pecking that makes listening less enjoyable. Maybe it’s the music seems unconventional compared to the lyrics, or the reverb mix, which is definitely exploited. Whatever it is, as brutally abstract as music can be, I kind of want a copy of the gas as a reminder of humanity. Because no matter how high-tech or sophisticated we feel, we are still Neanderthals, blinded by cave shadows and the sound of bones clattering. —Alton Barnhart
Check out more reviews of contemporary local music:
Local Review: Bumpy Soup – The Bumpy Album
Local Review: Brunch – DOGINYA
