Gonjasufi – MU.ZZ.LE

1/29/12 | By Graham Major | No Comments

Gonjasufi – MU.ZZ.LE
Warp: 2012

To call Mojave Desert-dwelling Gonjasufi ‘unusual’ doesn’t even cover it. His oft-blogged about vocal stylings, splitting the difference between fellow luminary turbo-eccentrics Tom Waits and the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, run alternately shrill and gravelly, screeching and rumbling his way through songs. On 2010’s A Sufi And A Killer, Gonjasufi used that fascinatingly bizarre voice to accent fantastic production from The Gaslamp Killer, with great success- it may not have been a ‘hit’ in the conventional sense, but it was very well received, and it appears the San Diego-bred yoga enthusiast couldn’t be bothered with convention anyway. On his current release for eponymous Warp Records, titled MU.ZZ.LE, Gonjasufi takes matters of production into his own hands, favoring distant, muffled marching-band percussion and macabre atmospherics.

The aesthetic throughout is sinister, candlelit and dusty- MU.ZZ.LE is music to set the mood while you mix arcane Victorian-era poisons or use your Ouija board to kick it with Aleister Crowley. Heavy kicks and massive cymbal crashes set the time for reverb-drenched out-of-tune organs and a wind noises, with the man himself at the center of it all, wailing and grunting his way through ten tracks of foreboding noise and difficult to discern lyrical content- after approximately fifty listens, all I know for sure is that the central themes of the album appear to be regret, shame and apology. “Nikels and Dimes,” “Venom,” and “Skin” all shine through the creepy grit and grime and stand out as successes- these songs are inaccessible, sure, and not for the faint of heart but with enough soul and purpose to keep the high-concept production from overwhelming the whole project. The decidedly less avant-garde, smoother “The Blame” is outstanding as well, though I can’t help but feel like it came from another project, as it’s the only track on MU.ZZ.LE eschews that eerie, unsettling sound palette. “The Blame” is also where the ‘regret and shame’ motif reaches critical mass, with the exclamation “I’m not the perfect man/ and I never claimed to be/ I’ve done some things in my time/ even I’m ashamed of me.”

MU.ZZ.LE is dark, creepy, and in some places borderline unlistenable, as Gonjasufi allows his avant-garde influences to parade mostly unchecked through heavily experimental territory. The successes are rewarding, and it’s entirely possible that some of the particularly shrill, noisy tracks are necessary in order to increase the impact of the more fully realized tracks. It’s certainly not for everyone, but the sound characterizing MU.ZZ.LE isn’t totally without precedent- usage of samplers and (extraordinarily vague) hip-hop influences aside, MU.ZZ.LE is essentially a 21st century, post-beat-scene answer to Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica or Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, perhaps even some of the aforementioned Tom Waits’ more esoteric material- totally inaccessible, often somewhat grating, but with a hypnotic gravity that will reward a certain type of (likely very high) listener.