Kinski
w/Master Musiciansof Bukkake, Charming Snakes
Sat July 23, Crocodile, 9 pm, $8, 21+.
Alpine Static, the fifth album by Seattle rock instrumentalists Kinski, is fat, fuzzy, and fulgent. The band have ditched most of their space-rock elements (though diehards will surely fuel their rockets to "Passed Out on Your Lawn" and "Edge Set") and instead gone for a combustible, aggressive tack that'll inspire mass devil-horn formations. You can hear why Kinski initially wanted Steve Albini to produce Static. But the work they did with local avant-rock studio wiz Randall Dunn turned out to be the most powerful of the band's seven-year lifespan, melding Steve Reich–like repetition and early-'70s hard-rock thrust into their diffuse psychedelic explorations. "[Acid Mothers Temple's Kawabata] was here last summer and Randall offered all of us to come down to his studio and record us for free," says bassist Lucy Atkinson. "We did it and really liked his vibe and how he talked about music. We wanted this record to be different from [Airs]. When we told him we wanted a really deep and full '70s rock feel from being recorded on analog tape, he knew what we were talking about."
Dunn, who also plays in Master Musicians of Bukkake, in turn raves about Kinski: "I had seen them live a few times and was really into the energy that poured off stage. I am usually up for recording music that I find to be sonically challenging; it always leads to new tonal discoveries."
Below, Atkinson and guitarist Chris Martin shed light on the songs that compose what may be Kinski's breakthrough album. Roll tape...
"Hot Stenographer"
Martin: It's the most direct result of what I've been listening to: Dug Dugs, Groundhogs, Buffalo, this '70s band from Australia. It's a real rockin', raw '70s vibe. It was sort of interesting for us to try to combine it with the minimalist thing that we used to do more than we have. We were getting sick of the whole ethereal, moody thing.
Atkinson: We wanted to come out really powerfully, and then go somewhere else later.
M: It's always good on a lead-off track to have a minute-long drone. [laughs]
A: Just to let everyone know we're still Kinski.
"The Wives of Artie Shaw"
M: [Shaw] had eight wives. During the '30s and '40s, he was one of the biggest jazz musicians. Then he quit music. I think Sub Pop is considering that as a single. We did a video for it.
"Hiding Drugsin the Temple (Part 2)"
M: There is a "Part 1"; it's on a little single, but it's a totally different song. The gears on our TASCAM 4-track were clogged so it came out sounding really slow, like a fucked-up electronic track by Autechre or something. Anyway, we just tried to make it as crazy and loose as possible, keep all the mistakes.
"The Party Which You Know Will Be Heavy"
M: Pieces of that song have been around for a couple of years. We couldn't get it to turn into anything. We played a couple of versions of it live and it never made any sense. It was painful to get that one together, whereas the first three were natural and quick. Normally, something you work on for that long is either gonna suck or the whole band ends up hating it by the time you're done. But that's my favorite song on the record. We recorded the whole 10-minute track live; there are no edits in there. That quiet improvised part [in the middle] is what happened on that take. It's a challenge to get those disparate parts and have it all flow from heavy rock to silence and ambience, to try to make it all gel together and make sense.
"All Your Kids Have Turned to Static"
M: "Static" and "Waka Nusa" are things we like playing in rehearsal, the mellow stuff, and it's kind of a challenge for us to do that. It's really hard to do it live. [It] seems like people never want to hear that in a rock-show context. It seems harder to switch gears live than on a record, as far as rockin' out and going crazy, then going to a tranquil, precise part.
A: Whenever we go to shows, the quiet parts are when everyone goes to get a drink or use the bathroom. I don't want to bring the momentum down in a show, but I love those kinds of songs, so... I think it works better on the records for us.
"The Snowy Parts of Scandinavia"
M: Probably the weakest title on the record. [laughs]
A: But not the weakest song.
M: That's the oldest number. It's been hanging around since before Airs Above Your Station. Like "Party," it just wasn't coming together, although the pieces were kind of cool... We basically threw it away, didn't play it for a year. But I pulled it out at a rehearsal, started working on it again, and something clicked.
"Edge Set"
M: Crowds at shows really like it. It has a noise vibe. Originally it had a mellow ending, but it didn't make sense, because the last song is mellow, too.
"Waka Nusa"
A: Waka Nusa is this amazing place on Nusa Lembongan island off of Bali. It deserved a title.
M: The crickets on the track are from a field recording done there. It had a nice humid vibe. [Being on that island was] definitely the most relaxed I've ever been. We weren't even drinking that much. It was that calming.
Listening to the record today, I realize the second half of it definitely stretches out and opens up. But in a way we would've been happier if the record had been like the first three songs. It ambients out near the end, but not in a space-rock way. We recorded the guitars live in a big room and only added a few overdubs for texture. That was the goal: to record the way we sound live. ■
