Hypercolor — Hypercolor

Here’s a recent release on Tzadik, home of the iconoclast John Zorn. I have only the physical disc to review, so the artwork and packaging must remain unknown. Hypercolor are a guitar/bass/drums trio, with ten colourful tracks on the release; occupying a middle ground essentially between rock and jazz, with traces of funk, electronics, and something I’ll have to rudely call “african music” - the influence is there to be heard, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to define a genre or locality…

If this sounds like a recipe to bake a no-wave album, then you’d be quite right: “Hypercolor” is most definitely drawing from that tradition, but with a very composed, virtuosic spin on things. It is abrasive, it is noisy, it does “rock” - but probably realistically only to those with jazz ears - to mine it remains polite and overwhelmingly cerebral. (On “Palace”, the trio do push the “rock” button very hard, but end up sounding like a hyperactive Trans Am.) So whilst Hypercolor (and the drums in particular) cook up a storm, they never “cut free”, so to speak. The first minute or so of the album is breathtaking, with the bass and drums marking out a hyperkinetic funk, over which the guitar sprays confident, arrival-announcing chords - its the introduction to the greatest album you’ll never hear: the rest of “Hypercolor” never really delivers. The drumming is often incredible, at times a blur of polyrhythmic grooves and patterns; the bass is commanding, too, restless but disciplined when required - its the guitar, which is somewhat foregrounded by the trio, which is sometimes a little weak. There are a couple of points where it just doesn’t sound confident, there are even sections of “Chen” where the guitar (or fingers) sound distinctly out of tune. I realise that “tune” can be a precarious term in this music, but its simply unclear whether Maoz is very cleverly playing micro-tonally off the suggested path, or whether something less impressive is taking place. Maoz supplements his guitar with some electronic embellishments, quite sparingly, making use of a whammy pedal and looper in particular; but these are never pushed to the extent that the trio become something “else” - they remain, after everything, curiously traditional sounding.

This isn’t a bad album at all; its simply, to produce a blindingly sweeping comment, an “academic” (or conservatory) take on some of the more knotty bands of “underground rock”. This isn’t a bad thing to be, it just means that some elements of those bands are developed further and some are weakened. So, we end up with an arguably more technically-minded, jazz-instrumental version of US Maple, The Jesus Lizard (or, indeed, The Denison/Kimball Trio), Arab On Radar, Hunting Lodge, et al (“Little Brother” might also be subtitled: “The Mogwai Song”); but without any of the grit, grime or fun of those bands. It’s studied no-wave as sheet music, but forgotten the polemic, the screaming, the life.