BULBUL -
6
(CD,
Exile on Mainstream)
Bring on the funk! The new Bulbul album, modestly and consequently named
“6”, offers a lot of things new to the universe of Bulbul-listeners,
some of them unexpected, but then again, isn’t that true for all records
released by Bulbul?
“You never heard such sound / when the sun comes out / a supersonic
sound” they croon right there on the first track over a superheavyduty
bassriff that Jon Spencer would be proud of and tightass drumming. I see
various remixes for the dancefloor up ahead. Well, the world is good as soon
as the heavy guitars kick in in the second song.
When I first heard that Bulbul designated Patrick
Pulsinger as the producer for their next album, I was puzzled. Not so much
because Patrick Pulsinger is a dance / electronica producer and artist, but
because as far as I know Bulbul never had a real producer. Stories about
nightmares like e.g. Judas Priest working together with Stock, Aitken,
Waterman came to my mind, but all of that was exaggerated. Now I am not sure
what Pulsinger did, but “6” sounds a lot more in your face and polished
than earlier albums, bigger and with more layers. Cleaner and more effective
and efficient in some ways. When before the band seemed to churn out their
noiserock all on the same line within the room, now they are spread all over
the place, in the back, the front, and changing. I betcha live these songs
will mutate into a much more raw and distorted sound, but after all it puts
good focus on the rolling rhythm machine that Der Hunt on bass and DD Kern
on drums really are.
What’s new besides the funky rhythms? Well, actually
with songs that depended so heavily on syncopation as those of Bulbul, funk
should be a logical consequence, so what’s new anyway? Little things, a
mass of little things. There is a new variety of singing styles, especially
the falsetto stands out, used in the background chorus variety as well as in
the front voice variety. But Raumschiff Engelmayr seems to try out a new
style of singing, or a new mix thereof, in every song. There is also a weird
echo on the bass-kickdrum that is not very hardrock, but it kicks, so it
works. Then there is some percussion and even drum solo tracks. Later
onwards there are German lyrics that invite singing along, especially at
“los mei hen in ruah” (leave my chickens alone transl.). And a
short track around vocal samples about xenophobia (“fremder
hingepisst”). As I said, there is a lot. Mostly though I think that this
time around the trio had a hundred ideas for every song and managed to
incorporate them without overloading the songs. So the main feature is
probably the weird mixture or the mixture of weirdness that runs through
these songs, all those crazy things that should destroy song if somebody
else did them, but somehow Bulbul make them work. And make them feel good.
Lets not forget the additional work added by the
legendary bullhorns as well as Philip Quehenberger (also from the Vienna
electronica circles) as well as Carla Bozulich’s contribution to the
staggering and fascinating “Shenzou” – a song allegedly written in the
backseat of some car on the way to the studio after it had been agreed to do
something together probably an hour earlier. Such is the pragmatism and
achiever mentality of Bulbul. And they are definitely winners.
If this album turns out the “Stag” or “Blood
Sugar Sex Magic” or “Yoshimi” of Bulbul, then I don’t mind. This
band has shrugged off a thousand questions in the past, being the most
friendly people in the world who are at the same time deeply introspective
yet resistant to any kind of exploration of their ideas. Ask them why they
reworked the song “the lack of the key” (from their 1998 untitled CD
that has become known as “the metal one” because it has a 666g heavy
iron covering) and I am sure the answer will not satisfy you, even if you
believe it because it makes sense when they say something along the lines
of: it just seemed to make sense at the time. It might seem arbitrary or
chaotic at first, but be assured that everything is well thought through and
rehearsed. As a listener / watcher the best thing is to not expect anything
at all, because you will be surprised by the outcome anyway.
