The Oslo-based drum and bass duo (not the 90s electronic genre – the analog version of drums and an electric bass) bring together usually competing, or at least distinct, musical styles on their latest release, An Ki, weaving the directness of grindcore-like noise with the extended, jam mentality of psychedelia. This is willed, of course. The preponderance of all musical precedents means that there is no hope of naive experimentalism these days, for better or worse. Accidents, at least in the world of music, are a thing of the past. The final element in the aesthetic of Burning Motherfuckers – a moniker that announces a lack of subtlety with adolescent delight – is the vocal delivery, which whines and strains alongside the harsher tones, lifting, and at times, burying, the organic whole under its over-the-top bellowing
An Ki contains four tracks, each of which plays, anagrammatically, with the above-described ingredients. The final one of “songs”, the eponymous, “An Ki”, is also the longest, accounting for almost half of the length of the album. It is a feat of endurance, both in terms of the playing, which moves in varying waves of intensity, and the listening, which precludes any possibility of indifference. You either love it or hate it, there is no getting around the miasmic monstrosity of what Burning Motherfuckers create. Even the shortest and most tame of the cuts, “Unless It’s Trees”, is just a way station on the path of the impending storm. Whether it’s your bag or not, it is certainly a feat to render each thing here a thing: there is no mistaking the vocals, distorted bass, or pounding drums, for anything else. Said differently, An Ki is a work of anti-synthesis – isolating its component parts into a fully transparent syntax, as concrete as a brutalist church.
For fans of psychedelic rock with a deep mistrust of anything pretty or flowery, it will likely appeal as well to the noise heads looking for an extended trip. For more
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