Mindflayer/Deep Jew

The 7incher next up sees Providence psychoscillator jamfest duo, Mindflayer, featuring psychoscillator operatorman/guy who does cool art Mat Brinkman and a guy who plays drums in another Providence band and hangs out with Bjork, paired up with Deep Jew who is from some L.A.ish area and Roy Tatum of Changeling/Quintana Roo/Buried Valley cassette label plays drums in it I think. That is the extent of what I tentatively call ‘my knowledge of Deep Jew’. I had no idea what they were even supposed to sound like but Britt and Manda changed that right quick. Anyhow enough of this introduction business, on to the tunes.
Going alphabetically (that is according to the sides) here is the rundown. Side A is the Mindflayer folks banging a track entitled “Frizzle Fry 2” Huh? Wasn’t “Frizzle Fry” a Primus song or album or something? Is this a cover/reworking/tribute/sequel? I was never too keen on Primus so I can’t answer those questions, maybe you can. The actual “Frizzle Fry 2” track is pretty synth dominated, lotsa wacky jumps between frequencies laid overtop of sorta free jazz/sorta 70’s rock solo drums. It’s a decent showing but is too brief for its own good and, unlike Mindflayers best material fails to establish a real groove. Not to say it’s without its merits or anything, the mic-in-the-mouth vocals that pop up towards the end are always welcome and as always the duo exudes plenty of neon sweat.
Ahhhh yeah! There are TWO tracks on the Deep Jew side! Score! That is like getting something that is awesome (like an order of Kung Pao chicken) but twice as much of it (two orders of Kung Pao chicken). Well that Kung Pao thing is kinda off the mark but just like the KP, DJ is pungent, messy and a tad bit spicy. But anyway food is no substitute for music, because of course, unlike food, music is essential to our survival. That’s what that whole “a man cannot live on bread alone” thing was about. Anyway, sorry for all that meaningless drivel, I’m sticking with the tunes for the rest of the paragraph I swear. First track (cause in case you forgot, there is two!) is called “Night Eyes 2”—hmm, what’s with all 2 of these “_______ 2” trax? Is “night eyes” a Primus reference too? Anyway, just the tunes… So yeah, I dropped the needle and my first thought is “this shit is visceral!” Lotsa feedback and bashing of drums and moaning of moans, towards the end there is a real nice part where the drums kinda go half time while the rest of the band just keeps spazzing away. Very nice. Second comes “Cops Wet Pussy” (is ‘Cops’ a noun or a verb there?) and it’s the stronger of the two(!) tracks, it starts out much like the previous but locks into a real nice lurch ‘n roll, like the grimiest of all Jesus Lizard devotees. Though, I don’t know if there is something necessarily distinct about what Deep Jew brews in their noise rock cauldron; they do do their noise rock brew real well, which, I guess, is quite distinctive nowadays it seems. So if you like yr grime on time (what in the fuck does that mean?) check out this Deep Jew band, I occasionally see their name around the net so I’ve got a feeling we haven’t seen the last of them. At least I hope not.
It should be mentioned that Devon Varmega did the artwork for this release and the reason it should be mentioned is it blows my mind! That is colored pencil on graph paper. Colored pencil and graph paper? Are you fucking kidding me? Apparently it’s a young kid in the Pacific Northwest (w00t PacNW). I need to track him down and just study him or something cause he obviously knows how to manipulate mundane earthly objects into something extraordinarily brilliant, something we could all stand to learn. Man, oh man. I need to lie down, his art is ruling my brain so hard.