Residual Echoes have managed to find
the perfect balance. Theres something at once familiar and totally
new about their psychedelic version of Punk Rock. On first listen,
the similarities are obvious. The cascading guitar noise of Dinosaur
Jr and the acid fried, spaced-out feel of the Meat Puppets are a main
influence for Dead Head. But
there is something refreshingly new about it too. In a world where
the vast majority of the music you hear (including rock music) is
polished to within an inch of its life, Dead Head
offers a more visceral and raw experience.
As it says on the band's website, Residual Echoes has flexibility built into it's very
core, including it's ever changing lineup. The only permanent member
of the band is Adam Payne, who releases records sometimes as himself
and at other times as Residual Echoes with a revolving cast of
working musicians. Some records “document a certain line-up of the
band and sometimes they are me by myself and sometimes these are
scrambled up together. Each one is approached from a different
angle.” This relaxed approach to band structure seems to allow for
greater freedom and productivity. Payne has released 12 records in
the last 10 years, either as himself or as Residual Echoes and each
of them has a different feel.
I was first drawn
to Dead Head after hearing “Düds”
on the brilliant but sadly defunct Hit It Or Quit It Podcast. The
intro sounded like the little piece of music you get when turning on
a video games console, before launching into a wonderfully distorted,
off key, song. “Düds”
is that perfect mix of loud, fast rock and melody that, if done
right, can leave you playing the same track over and over again. Adam
Payne's guitar playing is evocative of J Mascis at his most technical
and melodic whilst the track is mixed so that the bass fills in the
gaps during solos. Jessie Calvin of Bleached takes the lead vocals on
“Düds” whilst Payne
backs her up in the lackadaisical style he establishes throughout
this album.
For an album
where, walls of distortion are the norm, Dead Head starts off
with acoustic picking and jangly, pop chords. “Warts” has a feel
that is similar to early Lemonheads records (later on in the
album,“Gum” also echoes this influence). That cross section of
punk and indie-pop where the happy, trebley pop song is mixed with
intermittent wails of noise and vocals that are ever so slightly off
kilter. “Warts” is not as
straightforward as all that though. It veers into echoey
psychedelia for a while before slowing into an electronic sounding
throb, before rounding the song out with a mixture of everything that
descends into feedback. This is typical of Dead Head's nature
as an album that is pretty much free from constraints or
expectations.
“Fugcks” and
“Fruits” both have a guitar sound that has echoes of the Meat
Puppets' Up On The Sun in it. Without wanting to second guess
Adam Payne's music, I would go so far as to say that if any band has
had an influence on this record, it's the Meat Puppets. Throughout Dead Head, the out of tune harmonies and relaxed feel, easily
belie Payne's skill as a guitarist and song-writer, a tactic that
Curt Kirkwood had used to great effect in the Meat Puppets' SST days.
However Payne isn't just rehashing old ideas. This record is an move
beyond earlier attempts at fusing Punk and Psychadelica, entering
into new territory. Even the album's cover is a representation of the two genres colliding with a mohawked punk in a Grateful Dead shirt being slain by a greasy haired hippy sporting the Black Flag logo and of course the title is a play on Deadheads, the nickname for fans of the Grateful Dead. Residual Echoes individual mix of the two genres
is more than punk rock with guitar solos or a trippy song played with
4 chords and a clever guitar riff. Residual Echoes' sound on Dead Head
is that of a band completely free to do what they want. Theres no
trying to impress anyone or make sure that they're hitting the right
markers so that the record will sell, they just play the songs as
they feel they need to be played. If the song needs to dissolve into
a lengthy guitar solo past the first chorus, then so be it. This
gives the record an excitement that just isn't there in a lot of
music. An excitement that only comes out when the artist says “Fuck
being cool, I just want to play what I feel like playing”. Dead Head
is a raw, unfiltered album and it makes the hair on my arms stand up
each time I hear it.
This is punk at its
purest. Making music that matters to you regardless of restraints and
convention and releasing it independently. Theres a lot said about
how the internet has opened up music distribution to everyone. Whilst
that certainly has it's downsides, if it leads to bands like Residual
Echoes having an channel through which to funnel their wonderfully
strange and absorbing music, then it can't be bad thing.
Go to Residual Echoes' band camp site to listen to their music and download their
albums for an extremely reasonable amount of money.
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