(((O))) Review: Bushman’s Revenge – All The Better for Seeing You

For 20 years Bushman’s Revenge have mixed the genres of both jazz and rock music with a little twist of lemon that goes along with their vision. When you listen to the trio music, it’s almost as if Alice was going through the looking glass and revealing to see this hypnotic world that is bold, brash, electronic, heavy, and down to business.

The trio’s latest release All The Better For Seeing You is not only one of their finest, but combining the themes of finding your true self and moving forward. There’s the psych, country, calm-ambient sounds, nods to the ECM label, and Gainsbourg-esque quality, it gives the Bushman a chance to reveal a sense of understanding of what they’re doing.

‘Halvannen Time (an hour and a half, more than enough)’ opens with its walk across the beach late at night to see the sun coming down. I love how Hermansen creates this sliding effect on his guitar as he visions himself in the outskirts of Hawaii and look at the tropical areas with craggy ocean cliffs by creating the perfect sound for his instrument.

‘Hollowed Be Thy Fame’ sees Hermansen, Nergaard, and Nilssen’s intensive drum rolls dealing with the dark side of being successful in Hollywood before it goes into the underwatery late ‘60s approach to the krautrock scene with Miles Davis handling the production sessions. There’s no joke where Even tackles a bit of Gottsching’s sonic sound into his playing with these double-tracking beats.

Rune on the other hand creates each of the mountain tops, piece by piece, and bit by bit as he and Even work their tails off in the last four minutes of the composition. ‘Raptus Norvegicus’ is the trio’s nod to The Stranglers 1977 debut album, Rattus Norvegiucs.

But this isn’t post-punk ladies and gentlemen, the track goes into this late ‘40s, early ‘50s romantic swirl of a daydream gone mad while Even and Rune in the first two minutes create a Disney-like intro from the early Mickey Mouse shorts. Then it switches gear by going into this Zeppelin-sque riff from the Houses of the Holy sessions.

Going from a dystopian Disney epic score, Zeppelin, and right into the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s territory? How insane these guys can bring it up a notch! They up the ante! Not to mention a little nod to Brubeck’s ‘Blue Rondo a la Turk’.

Bushman’s Revenge have always kept the levels going. They always wanted to go further beyond the jazz genre and take these big, small, and very gigantic details into a whole other level. And the results are as fascinating as the eye can see.