"Bad as they may be, BAD STATISTICS are a fanatical bunch of drone improv rockers, veering between prog kraut minimalism and scandinavian doom (not to mention russian trancecore), framing the inimitable civil-servant-on-acid vocals of Thebis Mutante with a semi-coordinated / semi-spastic bed of repetitive riffing, pulsing texture and motoring rhythm."
BAD STATISTICS' second album 'Lucky Town Gone' has just been released by PSEUDOARCANA.
ORDER YOUR COPY AT http://www.pseudoarcana.com/current.htm
On the follow-up to last year's debut "Static" LP ((Kr-aa-k)3), Bad Statistics have set about laying waste to the New Zealand suburban dream with this album, a much darker and heavier affair than their debut. If "Static" were to be regarded as the Mission Statement of Bad Statistics Great Annual Report in the Sky, "Lucky Town Gone" is not the Business Highlights chapter to be expected next, but a sideways lurch straight to Appendix 17: Corrupted Data. Recorded onto degraded old cassette tape, "Lucky Town Gone" is a collection of mean-spirited practice room jams that sees the core four-piece of BAD STATISTICS further embracing the stoner doom drone rock that already defined large parts of "Static". The seven tracks of "Lucky Town Gone" are again spearheaded by the abrasive, sense-eluding vocal emissions of Thebis Mutante. Critical response to Mutante’s contributions on "Static" was deeply divided, and the new album is expected to further polarise opinions. Mutante is backed by Mark Williams (Marineville, Idle Suite, Cookie Brooklyn) on guitar, Justin Barr (Raskolnikovs, Users, Wrongdoings, Delaney Ghost Orchestra) on bass, and Johannes Contag (Jay Clarkson, Cloudboy, Sleepytime) on drums and production. Torben Tilly (Minit, Organ Eye, Full Fckng Moon, The Garbage & The Flowers) was absent due to extended interhemispherical field work.
And a great review again from Aquarius Records!
Awesome! We'd been waiting and wanting more from New Zealand's bizarre Bad Statistics ever since we got their vinyl-only debut, Static, last year. In addition to thinking they had a really excellent band name, we loved the doomic, droning weirdness of their propulsive krauty NZ noiserock, made even weirder by the utter outsider vocal garble that arose over their ritualistic music, like spirits or specters seemingly summoned from the other side. Now, huzzah, there's this new full-length, an actual cd on the Pseudo-Arcana label, and it pretty much picks up where the LP left off! 47 and a half minutes more of mysterious musical ceremony, Bad Statistics style, on these seven tracks. Again, the vocals (produced from the throat of one Thebis Mutante) are really strange, unhinged alien hippy rant-chant, like Ya Ho Wah's Father Yod speaking in tongues, sometimes looped and layered. Together with the throbbing drum beats, distorted electronic textures from guitar and bass, and hollow horn bleat and twitter on a track or two, you have the basic tempel-vibrating template for Bad Statistics' repetitive, rumbling, mesmerizing murk. Best listened to from a yogic position of spiritual openness, legs crossed, mind clear, third eye unblinking. Though, at their loudest, most intense chugging psychrock peaks, some vigorous rocking back and forth will be called for, maybe even full-on writhing on the floor. Let's take the 13-minute title track as an example... it's moaningly eased into, the percussive plod slow and sparse, but after a short while Thebis cries out quite like Can's Damo Suzuki, and the pace picks up, cymbals crashing... before another long droning lull with whistling and mumbling drifting over the slo-mo chug of the guitars and drums... then towards the very end, the singer suddenly seems possessed, his voice dropping into a guttural exhortations, the din of the instruments rising into a psychedelic swirling howl... welcome to the reverse exorcism!! Imagine the kosmic-kraut-primitivism of early Amon Duul, Tangerine Dream, or Siloah, with Circle's Mika Ratto as voice coach, encouraging Yod x Yoko vocal vibrations. Or the linear lo-fi insanity of a secret Dead C meets Reynols monster jam, if directed towards the worship of some ancient god, recorded on cheap cassette only as an afterthought. Yeah. It's pretty much awesome.
======================================
BAD STATISTICS' debut LP 'Static' (KED03, only 500 copies!) is available from K-RAA-K.
TO ORDER YOUR COPY GO TO: http://www.kraak.net/en/releases.php
CHECK OUT THE POLARISED REVIEWS!:
AQUARIUS RECORDS
One of our favorite new records of late, comes to us all the way from New Zealand, but via Belgium (where their label, long time AQ faves Kraak are based). A mysterious troupe called Bad Statistics, their debut a two song vinyl only EPIC. Equal parts droney noise rock, propulsive krautrock, and even some weird sort-of-doom. Drenched in swirls of chaotic FX and a blown out in-the-red recording, that manages to be fierce and murky at the same time.
Each track takes up a whole side and is given plenty of time to change shape and direction, sound and spirit, transforming gradually, but managing to remain hypnotic and blissed out. The A side, begins as a doomy plod, but with clean guitars instead of downtuned distorted ones, the drums spare, and all manner of weird demon-y vocals, a sort of post rocky crawl. Eventually, synths join the fray, and along with the drums, they lock into a looped cyclical groove, over which, still more strange vocals croon and moan. And we're talking REALLY strange, mewling moaning howling weirdness. The music sounds like some spaced out Tangerine Dream, the drums a constant pound way down in the mix, the synths pulsing and throbbing, the vocals though turn it into some damaged outsider space jam. At one point the synths drop out and the vocals go crazy, sounding like they're speaking in tongues, before the band kick back in, launching into a fierce Hawkwind style FX drenched psychrock outro that goes on forever.
The second track is even better, and one of our favorite songs of the year hands down. A gorgeously blown out dirge, the guitars so hot they crumble with every downbeat, the recording super distorted and raw, but the melody and the main riff are super gorgeous, catchy and minor key, the track relaxes briefly, spreading out into a glitchy ambient murmur, over which guitars shimmer, little bits of electronics flutter, and the bass holds it all together with a simple dreamy groove. Very krautrocky, and a bit like a more lo-fi noiserock Necks. The track shifts constantly over the next ten minutes or so, to weird doomy twang, with gorgeous majestic riffing, thick bass chords, and some shapeless falsetto vocals, then to a super distorted psychdrone freakout, replete with chiming guitar harmonics, and a pulsing throbbing rhythm buried beneath a layer of crunchy buzz, then to a sunbaked space jam, all open chords, simple drumming, more shapeless vox, and finally to a washed out krautrock dirge, peppered with bits of backwards percussion, garbled voices, reverse guitar, and jagged chunks of crumbling distortion, until the whole thing slowly burns to black.
Sorry to everyone without a turntable, but this just may be the blown out space psych doom kraut jam of the year!!
http://aquariusrecords.org/cat/experimental8.html
FOXY DIGITALIS
This record is not as much bad as it is just terrible… Sorry, but this shouldn’t have been pressed. The band clearly has spent a good deal of time listening to some good music and probably pride themselves on as much, but the clear desire to emulate Finland’s inimitable Circle above having some krautrock/Hawkiwnd leanings is all too apparent and makes their music that much more unoriginal. As musicians, the band isn’t so bad and if they keep going I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually found their own thing and started producing some exciting music… the potential is there… however, the vocals are just awful; uncalled for to say the least. An attempted weirdness that just doesn’t make it. Sometimes experimental means finding out what works and what doesn’t. To be fair, the b-side is far better and has a few golden moments, but I wouldn’t recommend wading through the swamp of bad taste to find those moments. Not to sound harsh, but honestly, this record would be better served if it were shelved, and the band would do better to go back to the rehearsal space and rework their sound a bit. Hopefully they’ll come back out though, because I genuinely believe there’s something worth salvaging, just not this effort.
1/10 -- Todd Brooks (29 January, 2008)
DUSTED MAGAZINE
Sidelong psych/Kraut/groove explorations from this mostly tasteful avant-jam sesh quintet out of Wellington, New Zealand. I’ve given this one multiple listens and there’s parts of it I keep coming back to in awe, namely when the finally hit the stride 2/3rds of the way through “If I Were a Pint of Milk,†a 22 minute colossus of slow-burn fuckery that gives way to a crashing, crushing beat, a manipulated reanimation of said beat on top of itself, and layers of bass, synths, and sax that aim right towards the sun. Make no mistake: despite the label affiliation, this is rock music, and it rocks pretty goddamn hard at that. I could really, really do without the mongoloid vocals of Thebis Mutante flittering all around this otherwise godly heap; his presence brings only distraction and annoyance to what might otherwise be a Kiwi space rock take on Endless Boogie’s endless boogie. Rein this guy in and you might have something. Side B’s medley ebbs and flows a bit in a more erratic fashion, but the peaks are still there, and give notice of some unreal, glowing, enormous promise for future outings. Edition of 500 copies, and taken in its most direct chunks, as killer a time as you’re gonna find in this realm as of late.
Doug Mosurock, Dusted Magazine, Vol 4, No. 1
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/708
I made my myspace layout using Pimp-My-Profile.com