FOETUS
flow
CD, Noise-O-Lution
J.G.
Thirlwell, where have you been so long? My guess: he was lost in a
drug-induced haze amidst the neonlights of the seedy, rained-on red-light
district of New York, where he spent his days in peep-shows, hustling and
memorising songs in his head. All the while he experienced the drama and
atrocities of everyday urban-ghetto-life. Then he took a short time-travel
to the stone-age, meeting the band that plays the score to the Flintstones.
With those guys he spent a night drinking cheap vine and whiskey and
lamenting the fact, that thousands of bands live off his musical legacy
without even knowing. Life is a cheap shot of drugs and a long headache
afterwards. Tortured by paining nightmares, which reveal themselves as the
truth, he fled back to the nineties and then, after the millenium has turned
over, trying feverishly to get his act together again. First by producing
tracks for other artists, and then starting to work on his own new record.
Yes, I am sure it happened that way.
But
his visions and ideas mixed and mingled, because there are just too many of
them, too much chaos and creativity. All instruments have to be played, and
everytime a new track is laid down a couple of new ideas pop up. Finally,
the dicionary has to be searched for another four-letter-word that will make
a good title. And as soon as “flow” is finished, the work for the
follower “glow” is already on its way. There is just no time to sit back
and relax. This city kills its weak, its young and its slow. Nobody cares.
No time to think, you have to swim or you’ll drown. Or get drowned.
In
that way, Foetus has again achieved to catch the atmosphere of the
big-city-loser amidst the craziness and speed of the urban metropolis, who
dreams about the old times and tries to stay alive in the present. The
future? Well, way out of sight. “Flow” rarely features hit-singles,
since all the songs offer at least one startling piece of arrangement,
instrument, tonality or lyric. They all get broken up somewhere along the
line, which makes this a very good album for people, who like to listen
through whole albums, but hard for DJs, who are always just looking for
another tune to make people dance. DJs in clubs, where people mainly drink
will find this a lot easier, since the atmosphere might fit perfectly for
another alcoholic stupor.
Somewhere
along the line J.G. Thirlwell stopped to use all these funny, different
monikers and incorporates all styles he once tried, and some others on this
record. There is the groovy big-band-jazz of Garage Monster or Steroid
Maximus, there are the early noise-experiments which he used to call
“Scraping Foetus of the wheels” or “You’ve got Foetus on your
breath” or “The Foetus All-Nude-revue” and many other, funny epitaphs.
Brand-awareness? Or just being consequent?
