Dead Machines - Live at Tzompantli | Eclipse|

One of the funniest dudes in noise, John Olson. I don't think I need to praise Olson's noise antics and if you ever saw Olson live, either with Wolf Eyes, Hair Police, Graveyards or any solo project he got going on knows the guy is funny as fuck. Noise doesn't neccesarily need a stand up comedian type cat but it's truthfully refreshing when you hear Olson introduce side A of this Eclipse LP with a speech that's equally absurd as convincing. You choose which side you're on. Dead Machines is made up of husband and wife Olson. His partner, Tovah Olson (née O'Rourke) is hardly unknown herself, keeping herself busy as part of Wooden Wand's Vanishing Voice and putting out inzane junkyard magic under her own name on the regular.

Just like in married life, har har, The Dead Machines have their ups and downs. Being erratic seems to be part of their nature. I've heard quite a few of their releases and this one certainly isn't their best. For me, the collaboration with John Wiese and Dead End at Olson Street are the DM highlights so far. The first side of Live at Tzompantli was recorded during their No Fun fest gig and it does have all the intensity you'd expect from a Dead Machines live jam. After Olson's speech shtick (crowd cheers: "make a prediction" and so it goes) the Machines fire up their junkyard gear with a touch of what sounds like a suffocating viola getting raped in the mouth. Thd digital assault is almost constantly evolving from lugubrous killerbee symphonies to steadily buzzing motoric effects. When Olson grabs for his saxophone it all gets a lot more body and depth, sounding like something inbetween floating Borbetomagus dust and Kaoru Abe's interstellar vomit....in slowmotion. Mixed with Ms. Olson's noise puntcuring it gets an unholy Sun Ra-like twist before marching into more predictable noise territory. Highly effective first half of this LP and it's not surprising the B side, as the studio side, doesn't match up to it.

The roughness of the noise is what I like most in Dead Machines, it's not streamlined, polished or plain piercing like Merzbow for instance, it's got dirt all over it. There's a core of filthy mud inside the handmade toys the couple creates and it oozes through in the music. It's very alive. Side B offers a less structured approach, it's varied but it's nowhere as magnetic as the first side. Sinuous metallic effects end up in high-wired screeches and cold, effectladen winds of sonic terror infiltrate the ear steadily. It's a shame they don't reach a climax somewhere, this way it just sounds like a lost Wolf Eyes American Tape with considerably less avidity. No shame but a missed oportunity to make this a definitive Dead Machines release. I guess they just aren't there yet, which makes me all the more curious to what's left in the bottle to be honest. For now, live seems to be the way to fully appreciate the ways of the Machines.