Jan 25, 2009

ignatz


III projects the atmosphere of Jack London and The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog onto a modern world ruled by technology. Devens brings us the most genuine melancholy contemporary pop music has seen since quite some time. This album leaves the underground scenery that is troubled by trends so often far behind and just shows us the pure essence of what Music has to be: raw emotions put to sound.

With his third full album Bram Devens has once again amazed us with a masterpiece. In his usual brain-melting retro-futuristic blues folk, he summons the devilish spirits of Bukka White, Robert Pete Williams and Sleepy John Estes as seen through the eyes of an adolescent Lou Reed. III tells a fictive and blurred story about the death of music genres. Tragedies built upon screeching, atonal and repetitive melodies. Smelling like a wet dog or a badly dried towel. III breathes a much more sentimental atmosphere compared to Devens’ previous work because of his grousing voice, that is not unlike Skip James’s. After the closing track “Dead By noon”, the tormented soul frees the listener from a heavy personal trip and leaves him dazzled. III projects the atmosphere of Jack London and The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog onto a modern world ruled by technology. Devens brings us the most genuine melancholy contemporary pop music has seen since quite some time. This album leaves the underground scenery that is troubled by trends so often far behind and just shows us the pure essence of what Music has to be: raw emotions put to sound.

El old-drone blues de Bram Devens, continúa cada vez más sumergido en escenarios subterráneos y atmósferas por las que sólo los maldecidos se pasean entre tormentas, aquellas en las que resúenan los ecos de Ornette Coleman y Henry Flynt. En III, el mejor disco de Ignatz, salen a la luz las melodías de un trovador del appalachian-folk, eso sí, uno extraño y misterioso a lo Jandek, pero más mutado por sus rasgadas guitarras. Como es seña de identidad, música para escuchar, imposible de describir.

aldea f.: ignatz