Risil — Non Metters Vol
What matters is names; assign each (super!) member a power level of sorts (I’m translating this in Dragon Ball terms – seems appropriate), add up, and the greater the grand total is the better the group, right? Except the whole thing rather seems to work inversely, and the bigger the egos, the worse the music, and the music is, in the end, what it’s all about, mind you.
The line-up of Risil reads much like a supergroup. Among their members we find Guillermo Herren (of Prefuse 73), Zach Hill (of Hella), John McEntire (of Tortoise), Tyondai Braxton (of Battles), and an array of other musicians with enough indie cred to float an aeroplane over the sea, so to say, if you catch my drift. Needless to say, I’m not entirely sure what to think (that is, prior to actually spinning the disc, seeing as it comes in sealed, I have read the credits before I’ve even unwrapped the thing, and so I’ve already started to stumble towards an opinion; oh, prejudices!), yet I also have the best of hopes, as several of the involved musicians’ projects strike a chord with me, especially the drum heavy bands like Hella and Battles. Seeing as six out of the eleven people involved here, moreover, are credited for some sort of percussion (ranging from, simply, drums, to bells, cymbals and beat boxing), I’m actually expecting a good deal of this disc.
Non Meters Vol. 1 turns out to be surprisingly non-drum-heavy; percussion sometimes plays a clear, foregrounded role (like on Was Once for Zanzo), where it rattles away particularly pleasantly, yet often enough it’s a more whimsical, modest clicking and tapping, backgrounded and seeming the minor character in this play. Instead, various vocals drift ever more often to the foreground, male and female, ethereal and matter-of-factly, wavering and sharply outlined, while the slight soundscapes are further filled by a range of electronic cuts and clicks, gentle drones, guitar picking, and so on. It’s a quite pleasant sound, at the best of times surprisingly warm and homely (like on Oxygen Path), somewhere in between Prefuse 73, Tortoise and folktronica. It’s easy on the ear but no easy listening; handsome but not (too) pretty.
Yet despite its enjoyable sound, Non Meters Vol. 1 is otherwise largely lacking any clear direction, any focus; for close to an hour, it drifts from track to track and mood to mood without ever really seeming to peak, or anything really seeming to stand out (leave for the two tracks I named earlier). It’s unfortunate, for it seems to add very little to the growing heap of indietronics material, and the heap grows on and on and soon to the ear and eye it seems little more than a mountain of fragments interchangeable, and it does not manage to excite enough, and it’s out of sight, then out of heart, falls into ruin, and it’s, in the end, just a Wasteland, fragments of things we no longer remember or recall.
Non Meters Vol. 1 is by no means bad, and it’s a good listen for as long as it lasts, but it’s also too forgettable, too undefined to leave any lasting impression. Yet it does not fully meet my expectations in a supergroup sort of way, in that it’s infinitely more enjoyable than anything traditional supergrouply, and that’s a good thing, and it goes to show that, supergrouply speaking, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 need not always be, paradoxically, 1, or maybe 2, but it can also be 3 (though I’ve yet to hear the sensible 4, and anything beyond it, to convince me), and for that reason alone, Risil already commands some respect. Not too much though. Let’s wait and see what Vol 2 will have to offer.