Bly De Blyant — ABC
Listeners hoping for most any musical style will likely find this album hard to place at first. Bly de Blyant are clearly fans of sparsitude and minimalism, yet strike a very odd contrast between subdued repetitions and almost absurdly technical polyrhythmic riffing passages in which the drumming takes the fore, resulting in disorientation, though no distortion or harshness is employed. There's an intentional and playful incongruity to the ideas at work, but it's never overtly silly.
It could be said that every track on this album is an experiment with a new idea or approach. Many of the 14 songs are only 1-2 minutes, and the album as a whole is 36. This is again strange considering that the actual pacing of the sounds in each song tends to be slow. The album certainly feels listenable and fresh, but the sparsitude sometimes leaves me wondering when a more substantial musical movement might begin. The band is constantly restraining the flurry of notes they are clearly capable of, making for an elusive album.
Thanks to the interplay between bassist and guitarist, their sound is actually quite melodic. Their roots in blues, funk and retro rock frequently show. With the brief jam "Wang Dang Doodle", we find them channeling the Dead during an extended solo section, and the disco inflected "Controversy" revolves around percussive funk picking, a soulful lead melody handled by the bass, and a solid 4 chord progression.
Some of the short interludes like the 14 second "Spiral Jetty" recall live recordings of John Zorn's Painkiller project (minus the violent shriek of his saxophone), in large part due to the Laswell-esque bass playing. The bass player leans heavily on wah and chorus effects, unleashing a dense concentration of notes beneath a comfortable filtering, so that the effect comes off understated.
"27" feels like a creative or technical exercise, a series of polyrhythmic unison stabs on a single chord, which every few seconds shifts between triplets and ever more mindbending odd meters until ending as abruptly as it began. An entire album of this could feel sterile or gratuitous, but here it is just another curiosity, and a well placed one.
I do sometimes feel when listening to this album like the drummer is perhaps the only member of the band comfortable with such a level of technicality, and that the guitarist in particular struggles to keep up during tracks like "27". Still, I must commend the drummer for sounding utterly impeccable and in control when playing odd meters, he even sounds joyful, like it's a thrill to play such patterns.
Purely ambient pieces like the organ dominated "Hutch Jesus II" catch the ear on subsequent listens to the album. Their crystalline beauty remains vague, mystical or spiritual in some way but deeply ambiguous.
The closer "Snares" is rustic campfire post rock, with brushed drums, hummed vocals and beautifully chilled call and response acoustic guitars. The bands sentimental side shines through at these moments, and for its unpredictability this is a very relaxing and soothing album.
My favorite track might be "Mordechai", one of the few longer pieces at nearly 5 minutes. It begins with some offbeat angular riffing, and halfway through settles into a deeply haunting ethereal reverie. The band has the uncanny ability to reach the deepest tranced out levels attained by psychedelic jam bands without having to meander for upwards of half an hour in order to get there.
I can't give it a perfect rating because I feel like the band doesn't go beyond the experimenting phase and really excel at any of the styles they've chosen to pursue, with the exception of a couple tracks like "Mordechai" and "Snares".
I personally enjoyed the adventurous spirt and understated musical structures of this album. Some math rock listeners, however, would likely find themselves wondering when the music was going to pick up, or find the sound too unstructured during its ambient and improvisatory moments. I recommend this to someone looking for some more chilled technical music, or to fans of freeform jazz that aren't turned off by math and post rock elements.