By: Jamie Jones
Haikai No Ku | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on January 25, 2016 via Box Records
Mike Vest is clearly not a man afraid of hard work. The list of projects on his website is longer than most record label rosters, with drone/doom stalwarts Bong being perhaps the most famous so far. He might not be the driving force behind all of them, but the sheer volume of records bearing his name somewhere in the credits must be hard for even him to keep track of. And all that graft shows on records like Temporary Infinity – it takes a lot of work to make music this dense and frightening sound effortless.
From the moment ‘Saltes of Humane Dust’ wraps its cloak of colossal fuzz around you it’s obvious we’re in the presence of a man who knows what he’s doing. All the tracks on Temporary Infinity follow the same pattern – the rhythm section of Sam Booth (Foot Hair) and Jerome Smith (Female Borstal, Charles Dexter Ward) settle into a slow, brooding groove that serve to anchor Vest’s wall of guitar parts, a sonic collage of tone and texture. Corrosive wails weave through a dense haze of damaged fuzz and burbling static. 4 minutes into ‘Saltes of Humane Dust’ a solo of sorts carves through the murk like a buzzsaw. Vest’s playing isn’t like the fret-battering virtuoso displays of most psych guitarists – it sounds like how I imagine the music in Lovecraft’s The Music of Erich Zann to sound, the inhuman and otherworldly melodies Zann plays in order to appease a cosmic entity on its nightly visits to his apartment, lest it get bored and devour the world. Only in Vest’s case I’m not sure if he’s warding off the apocalypse or inviting it.
With Bong there’s something communal in its colossal drone – the volume may be oppressive, but the tone is warm and inviting. Not so with Haikai No Ku. It’s psychedelia with an element of danger, of darkness, of angst and of existential dread. It’s not so much about turning on/tuning in/dropping out as it is about laying on the floor and holding on for dear life. On ‘Temple Factory’ a one note bassline hammers on insistently, dragging more towering guitar noise onwards like some hulking monstrosity in chains. The brief ‘Blind Summit’ sounds like being in the eye of a raging storm created by mountain sized amplifiers. I feel the Japanese band name is no accident – there’s a strong connection with the more out-there psychedelic acts from the land of the rising sun. Though they’ve softened the everything-in-the-red approach of Les Rallizes Dénudés they displayed on début album Sick On My Journey they’ve still got the single mindedness of Mainliner and they clearly worship at the same alter as Boris at their most uninhibited.
Elsewhere ‘In the Garden of Sunken Eclipse’ starts out a more muted affair, similar in vibe to the more sedate jams of Carlton Melton, holding back on the looming menace until it’s lulled you into a false sense of security. Then those abrasive, haunted tones seep in like toxic gas through the crack under your door. ‘Sea of Blood’ rounds things off in similar fashion, with the hypnotic bassline almost distracting from the eldritch horrors sketched in feedback by Vest’s guitar. Then the whole things slips away, back into whatever abyss it came from.
Whilst many of the sonic wanderings he lends his name to are perhaps an acquired taste – nigh on 10 minute long drone jams are not everybody’s cup of tea after all – Temporary Infinity is one that may intimidate even the converted with its full blooded dark magic. That’s what’s continually impressive about Mike Vest’s work – despite working within what may seem like narrow parameters if you’re willing to tune into his wavelength he can take you just about anywhere. But listener beware: the places he’ll lead you don’t come much more twisted, blackened and scorched than the ones contained within Temporary Infinity.
