Charles Bobuck, — GOD O: Music For A Gallery Opening

First released in 2012, as a digital release, then as a limited CD release, GOD O: Music For A Gallery Opening. It finds Charles Bobuck, aka Residents Co-founder and the primary composer, Hardy Fox, scoring the gallery experience of the exhibition of The Residents/Ralph Records. Here from Klanggalerie is an expanded double CD reissue of the release. With a sound here moving between blends of musical pomp and weedy vocalisations, world music beats and wailing guitars, ambience and beyond, making for a varied and entertaining ride 

The two CDs come presented in a glossy six-panel mini gatefold- on its front, we have an abstract morphed picture of a cockerel. Inside, we get images of the top-hatted & eyeball Residents lined up, and a hazed/ text over picture of Mr Fox. With the back following the poultry theme of the front, with an overlaid silhouettes of chickens and chicks. I’m not sure how many copies were pressed of this release, but I can’t imagine it’s a huge number.

The first disc opens up with three shorter/ around three-to-four-minute tracks. We go from “God Damn Chickens” which melds tight electro beats, dramatic guitar scaping, ethic rhythmic fills, soaring wordless female vocals, and quieter/ odd moments of weedy/wavering vocals, and low-key eerie electronica. Onto swooning Arabic tones, meet knocking/ twisting beats, and strummed-to-piping muzak of “Spring Song”.   The lion's share of the first disc is taken up by “GOD O”- which runs for just over forty-one minutes. It moves from mixes of mysterious desert ambience, tabular-edged electro rhythms, and moody percussive ringing ‘n’ rattling’s. Onto lightly unsettling/ active post-industrial ambience, though to drifts of half-heard honking’s/low-key noir vibes, eerie key tolling’s, mellow guitar slides/ hazed country rock dwells, lulling/pared-back string swoons, abstract post-electro rock grooves, and beyond. Talk about gallery music/ a long-form sonic journey of the highest quality, which retains both its mystery, shifting flow, and reward.

Moving onto the second disc, and this opens with another long track, “GDC” which comes in just over the twenty-eight-minute mark. It opens with layers of set-bound percussion work. As it progresses, there’s a wavering/ wonder timbre tone added, and the layers, once fairly even and consistent, become more tonally warped. As we go on, we get moments of buzzing horn work, secondary ethic rhythms, and spectral ambient tones appearing. Later on, we move into more stripped-down electro beat work edged with abstract sound tone trails, ambient drones, or bounding bass lines/ rising organ tones. So another rewarding/ eventful long-form track. There are three more tracks on the disc- these move from the gamelan percussion, rising guitar tones, wavering chanting, and eastern muzak grandeur of “Nada Dago”. Onto piping horn pomp, electro beats, and abstract tone layering of “Spring Song”.

It truly is wonderful to see Klanggalerie carrying on reissuing the work of Mr Fox, as there is no doubt he was a true/ distinct musical genius- who never got the praise/ respect he truly deserved- both in The Residents and in his solo career.  GOD O: Music For A Gallery Opening is another genre-defying example of his craft, which moves from the quirky/ playful to the moody/unsettling.