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Wrekmeister Harmonies

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Wrekmeister Harmonies, “Then It All Came Down” (Thrill Jockey, 2014)

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I was completely floored by last year’s blackened drone/doom metal epic You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me, so I was very eager to hear how J.R. Robinson could possibly follow such an out-of-nowhere tour de force. As it turns out, he chose to follow it by essentially doing much the same thing again. I was initially a bit disappointed by that, as Then It All Came Down is not as immediately striking as its predecessor, nor did it ambush me with any real unexpected twists. Once I listened to it enough for everything to fully sink in, however, it gradually dawned on me that this latest effort is just as spectacular in its own right: Robinson may have revisited his previous formula, but he also found several new and crushingly heavy ways to improve upon it.

As he did with his previous opus, Robinson again assembled a murderer’s row of Chicago’s finest noise and metal luminaries to ensure that Then It All Came would be as mesmerizing and scarily heavy as possible. Much like David Tibet, J.R. seems to have a distinct knack for drawing an eclectic array of personalities and talents into his orbit. There are a couple of unusually ambitious changes and unexpected guests this time around though, as well as a compelling overarching concept: the piece is based upon a Truman Capote essay about underground musician/Manson-associate/convicted murderer Bobby Beausoleil, mirroring his gradual descent from a talented, hedonistic youth into beaches, girls, and motorcycles into much darker and more occult waters. The pre-fall part of Beausoleil’s story is conveyed through lushly beautiful drones mingled with chimes, Siren-esque chanting from a trio of female vocalists, and wonderfully roiling acoustic guitar from Ryley Walker. All of that is rich with intended meaning and relation to moments from Bobby’s life, of course, but the more important thing is that it sounds amazing—particularly when Walker’s intricate, cascading guitar work churns with increasing aggression beneath the drone haze as the piece builds in intensity.

Around the 10-minute mark, however, the piece wobbles a bit, as Leviathan’s Wrest turns up for an croaking Black Metal-style invocation that seems a bit too cartoonish and heavy-handed for me as a non-Black Metal fan. However, Robinson quickly rights the ship with the appearance of a melancholy string quartet riding an ominous, throbbing drone. While the actual music is quite beautiful, the real magic is how the piece seems to organically flow like a bleary, ritualistic dreamscape. Nothing ever feels completely real, as there is always something billowing, pulsing, or swelling around the periphery to disorient me. Eventually, the piece predictably erupts into a doom metal crescendo, which is (again) not my favorite thing in the world, but it is executed brilliantly once it fully coheres. In fact, it eventually rivals Walker’s playing as one of my favorite parts of the album, as the drums lock into a stumbling slow-motion groove and all hell breaks loose, as the sludgy down-tuned chords are enhanced with all kinds of processed howls and smoldering electronic wreckage.

There is some falling action after the apocalyptic metal crescendo, but the meat of the album is essentially the gradual transition from sublime drone heaven to charred metal ruin. The album’s flaws exist only in a completely subjective sense, as extreme metal croaking and howling vocals are just not for me anymore. Even so, however, I suspect that those moments were absolutely devastating and spine-chilling in the piece’s original context, as it debuted with a moonlight performance in Chicago’s Bohemia National Cemetery last year (presumably the perfect place for blood-curdling, inhuman howls to make a startling impact). Ultimately, I think I still prefer You’ve Always Meant So Much to Me, but Then It All Came Down inarguably boasts similarly brilliant vision and execution. Although some parts did not resonate as strongly with me this time around, Robinson went much bigger, much deeper, and much darker, compensating for the rare weak moments with some alternately rapturous and brutal high points.

Listen here.

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Wrekmeister Harmonies, “You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me” (Thrill Jockey, 2013)

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This was my first exposure to the work of video artist/composer JR Robinson and it more or less left me absolutely flattened. You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me is ostensibly just a single drone piece Robinson wrote to soundtrack one of his films, but a far better description is probably “a veritable Murderers’ Row of Chicago’s finest black metal and noise musicians converged at Steve Albini’s studio to perform a truly crushing, slow-burning, and blackened epic.” More remarkable still: the album is even better than that sounds.

Given the brutal lineage of many of the performers involved (Leviathan, Nachtmystium, Bloodyminded, etc.), it came as a great surprise to me that You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me starts off sounding a lot like something off of Windy & Carl’s We Will Always Be and stays that way for a deliciously long time. That comparison is a very high compliment coming from me, but it is definitely warranted by the subtly swaying drones, simmering guitar noise, soft female vocals, exhale-like hissing, and warm beauty that unfolds. 

In fact, there is no hint of menace to be found at all until around the 12-minute mark, when a high-pitched, quavering whine swells in and harmonizes dissonantly with the underlying drones. Some crackling inhuman howls appear as well, alleviating any doubts I may have had about whether or not the piece was about to take a very ugly turn.

As jarring as that intrusion sounds, the piece still somehow stays relatively melodic, as the nerve-rattling thrum is perversely soon joined by a looping acoustic guitar arpeggio. The tension never lets up though, which is why You’ve Always Meant So Much to Me actually transcends the incredible promise of its opening. From that point onward, it grows steadily more dense and complicated in two separate directions at once: the melodic bed is lushly augmented with viola, cello, and harmonium while the undercurrent of dread expands in both texture and heft to create a roiling, overwhelming juggernaut of equal parts beauty and nightmare. Then it all erupts around the 22-minute mark and all of the very patient black metal guys finally get to unleash their howling catharsis.

As explosive and well-earned as the crescendo is, it marks the point where the composition downgrades from “pure genius” to merely “great.” Admittedly, black metal is not my favorite thing, but my critique is somewhat objective in that the howling vocals and distorted power chord riffing are very contemporary and fix the piece at a very specific place in time. That does not make it any less heavy though and the band deftly avoids all of the cartoonishness and excess that I normally associate with the genre. 

Also, to Robinson’s credit, I have absolutely no idea what else he could have done instead, as he maintained a smoldering intensity and tension for an improbably long time and a metal eruption is unquestionably a very effective way to release all that accumulated power. Also, I like the idea of music this brutal and black-hearted being performed in museums (this piece was debuted at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, for example).

After the fury subsides, the composition winds down with a melancholy denouement/fade-out centered around harp, viola, and harmonium with a bit of Tuvan throat singing tossed in for good measure. It does not come close to recapturing the magic of the piece’s first half, but it is still a very effective come-down. 

Notably, that magic was probably impossible to recapture anyway, as the first 20-minutes of You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me are basically as good as music can possibly get. Which is even more remarkable when I remember that this album is actually just a soundtrack to accompany one of Robinson’s films, making it just one facet of a multimedia work. Also, I had never even heard of Robinson until this album came out. That makes some sense, since he seems to have primary traveled in high art circles as a field recordist/installation artist, but I now have a gnawing sense that I have been missing out on something important. In any case, I definitely need to track down that film now. This guy is a monster.

Listen here.