David Grubbs & Liam Keenan
Your Music Encountered In A Dream
AUSTRALIA ROOM40 RM4223 CD (2024)
American player Grubbs is one so prolific that I feel I should have heard more records by him – not to mention his wide-ranging credentials, that take in hardcore punk band Squirrelbait Youth (later Squirrel Bait), playing with Red Krayola, session work for such notable oddballs as Will Oldham and Royal Trux, as well as rubbing noses with prominent American minimalist composers Tony Conrad and Pauline Oliveros.
My blind spot might be the Gastr del Sol episode with Jim O’Rourke, the latter a similarly multi-talented player and man of musically omnivorous tastes – I only ever heard the Upgrade & Afterlife album, but its hermetic secrets remained a locked door for me. This is probably to my detriment, as that Chicago project is regarded by many as a primo example of 1990s post-rock, although that term may be disputed, and the cultural value of the genre is uncertain. With today’s record, I’m sadly no closer to understanding the workings of the many-layered Grubbs mind; these duos with the Australian guitarist Liam Keenan are like hearing a conversation in code. I can see that there’s much understated nuance in the playing, and much skill; one or both of the players restraining their evident talents in favour of producing ambiguous and open-ended circular statements. Actually they might not be circular in form, maybe more like a rhomboid or trapezoid.
There’s also the knack of disguising the sound of the electric guitar so it could be mistaken for a synthesizer or some other form of electronic music, a familiar technique but deployed here by our two heroes with their own brand of original stamp; it’s to the forefront of ‘Gemini Cluster’, a rich blend of unusual sounds, but the actual guitar action never seems to fully ignite into passion or warmth. At least this ‘Cluster’ serves up a certain amount of opacity and mystery, which is more than I can say for the sentimental ‘Miracle Bowling Club’, which just seems tired and lethargic, not even bothering to do more than suggest a trite melody. I am trying to be guided by the album title, which is redolent of poetic possibilities, and I write as one who is ever-ready to be inspired by a surreal nocturnal journey. Yet Grubbs and Keenan do not quite capture the elusive dream-state mode, nor induce a facsimile of same in the listener; the promise of fading beauty at the point of waking up is never delivered.
Liam Keenan is also Meteor Infant, he writes songs as well as playing the guitar, and the record was recorded in Sydney during downtime when David Grubbs was on tour in Australia in 2023. (23/02/2024)