The Golden Palominos - "Dead Inside"
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Anton Fier sent me an advance CD of the new Golden Palominos record, and
it's very intense.
A sinister yet compassionate record of this violent and lost modern age.
Hi-tech primitivism, with an obsession for alien/alienated sex and death.
This seems to me a relentless portrait of the urban nightmare of the future
- or even the present (with a predominantly New York atmosphere, if that
makes any sense). 3AM sensuality with an undercurrent of violence.
Imagine "Blade Runner" or "Brazil" with the sensuality of Enigma and the
darkness of Laswell's ambient creations. Lori Carson is gone, with vox
taken on by Nicole Blackman (anyone have background?), whose take on
reality seems to be an even more (!) erotic nihilism. Nicole sounds like
Laurie Anderson in leather. Intelligence and exotic sensuality. Speaks
her poetry in urgent or sensuous or dying whispers.
Standout tracks (though the cuts are uniformly excellent):
"Belfast" - a funky metronome rhythm and breathy vox like this -
"You lick her diamond and kiss her pearl
but you can't get the Belfast out of the girl"
"Holy" - a brutal song of self-annihilating anorexia. A hissing background
of wind through empty houses.
"Victim" drones with a first person present-tense account of an abduction
and murder - from the viewpoint of the victim. Too chilling for my taste,
but effective as art.
"Ride" is seductively unforgettable. The lyrics are spoken with a
drummer's sensibility, even though Nicole wrote all text.
"Slow...Slow...Quick Quick Slow... Ride..."
"Drown" provides welcome relief from the darkness as the record's
centerpiece, a lush and echoed modern love song. What sounds like
reversed guitar chords through layers of effects. It's a fantastic track,
and the lyrics are here selectively included, as it's my current fave cut:
"I am sick with this...
drowning over and over
charmed disarmed
he comes when least expected
sits too close
lingers too long
stares too deeply
encloses me in a circle
I cannot name...
this is a gift
biting tongue until blood
I am sick with him
Talk goes no deeper than tonight
Words are tickets to spend time...
I know not to go too deep
or his hands stop
trembling
temptation
I fall back, open up, crawl walls
This woman is no man's
This man is no one's
This one is mine...
Cigarettes are for curling smoke and drawing me in...
Guilt makes for poor postcards
So he comes in for a while
What do you know of this?...
Skin against skin
you do not know
with hands that know too much
of what you must never say...
to balance wishes on tongues
and wait for the time - now...
Regret makes you bitter, he says
Come in and swim...
He will exist, he will evaporate
I am sick with him gone...
holding me down...
and telling me not to talk
not to move
this will only take an hour - or two..."
"Metal Eye" is another song of willful self-destruction ("you think this is
tragedy - she thinks this is fun"), a suicidal S&M euthanasia, apparently
of a female android, with the whispered and eerie chant repeating - "I'm
dead I'm dead inside".
Songs move from ambientscapes into jungle rhythms, drum&bass without bass.
The music is stripped bare, with rhythms predominant (as one would expect
from a drummer...). Many tracks are completely beatless, and most of the
beats focus on the high frequencies, so only a few cuts could be potential
dancefloor material, while the dark subject matter would scare the
mainstream clubheads away. Most, if not all, rhythms are programmed.
Fun tricky cut-and-paste.
Then again, the word "fun" wins as the most out-of-place out-of-space outer
space word in this review. This is not a "fun" record, but it is starkly
and harshly beautiful. Now I've included the unlikely word "fun" three
times. Four.
Beyond the beats, one hears ambient sweeps and the occasional menacing
distorted noise.
The atmosphere is heavy and foreboding, angry without being shrill, strong
without being trite.
Melodies, when present, are typically subdued fragments, repeating under
the beat like memories or myths of a more tranquil and idyllic past.
Laswell's presence is relatively invisible on this record, though
supposedly he is indeed present. His contribution is quite subtle then, as
there is a distinctive lack of basslines. The advance CD is a black
generic thing with minimal liner notes, so no other names but Fier's and
Blackman's are mentioned.
The cover describes the work as "stunning" - and for once, the product
lives up to the hype. This music grabs one's attention and coils around
it, slipping like cigarette smoke rings and adhering to the skin.
Despite its frequently morbid subject matter and manner, this record does
not necessarily lead one to attempt suicide. While hardly cheery, its
effect is somehow vitalizing. The world is cruel - but we're still alive.
Let's hope Nicole doesn't live out her dangerous fantasies.
Compliments to the artists for an impressive and powerful record, one of
the best and most unique I've heard in some time.
A predicted classic!
Zenon M. Feszczak
Philosopher ex nihilo