Armpit — Tron
The same, more or less, seems to go for Armpit, the band; certainly, the dank and the hairiness seem to suit them. Armpit are a duo from New Zealand who have apparently been around for a long while, having released their first 7” way back in 1993, but this is the first I’ve heard of them. Tron, possibly named after the Disney movie of the same name and bearing the kind of cyber artwork that strengthens my suspicion, is comprised of material both new and old; the first six tracks constitute the titular Tron material, the other eight constitute the Anaru EP, comprised of recordings from 1996 to 2001.
Armpit’s sound is particularly filthy and rotten, being a rather deranged type of noisy weirdness played with, primarily, traditional guitar and drums and bass. It’s hard to pin down, mostly because it seems to lack any clear sense of direction; between the various tracks, but also within them, the duo go through a variety of moods and styles, then jamming away aimlessly in a sort of psych rock vein, then producing a screechier, less coherent stream of lo-fi noise, and going back and forth between those styles seemingly effortlessly – though also, often, unsuccessfully.
While there’s certainly some interesting textures and moments on Tron, the majority of the album seems, unfortunately, filled with the kind of aimless experimentation that mainly suggests that the duo finds it hard to be selective and/or critical when it comes to their own recordings. The opener, for instance, starts promising enough with a sort of rhythmic clatter and a variety of sounds seemingly recorded in a steel mill or something alike, but instead of working towards some sort of climactic moment, it fizzles out; some stream of formless fuzzy white noise is eventually worked into the mix, then some guitar wankery, eventually some digital beats, but it doesn’t work one single bit, and it’s all a bit of a let-down. Cut it down to two minutes and you’d actually have something good.
Much the same is true for the rest of the disc, both the Tron material and the Anaru material; while, sonically, at least, there seems to be some potential, the way in which the whole thing is handled seems so slapdash, so lazy, that any critical listener will find it hard to sit through the whole thing without eventually becoming slightly annoyed at it. Tron seems to sell a tired and uninspired Generation X ego-trip as something positively experimental, but I’m wondering who’ll actually buy it.
If I’m ever aching for trashy noise played with a trashy punk rock attitude I’ll stick to my old Beast 666 tapes, or anything 80s Eye Yamatsuka, and if the comparison doesn’t seem fair, for should we really compare any random noise outfit to anything so certifiably great, well, maybe it isn’t. But it’s not that Hanatarashi and Armpit don’t play in the same league – it’s not even the same fucking sport. And personally, I’m not sure if the game Armpit play is anything I could be a fan of. In the end, Tron is a slightly too confused and directionless collection from a band who certainly seem capable of more – so let’s hear it, fellers.