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| Embrace |
As I’ve mentioned in other reviews, I am fascinated by islands of all kinds. I would say that just as their isolation leads to unique ecosystems, there is something about islands that affects their music as well. Embrace by the free-improv duo Dogs Of Pleasure (Julius Schwing on guitar and Alfred Jackson on drums) is a great example of an album informed by a different sort of mindset than one raised on the mainland. This is music of triply insular origin: Schwing and Jackson are based on Bruny Island, a relatively tiny sliver of land off the southeast coast of Tasmania, Australia. I’ve heard Tasmania described as feeling like “the edge of the universe”. The sounds of Embrace are certainly sounds of the edge - raw, rugged, unforgiving, combining scavenged bits of influences washed up by the tides to create something not quite like anything I’ve heard before.
This is a heavy album, with a wild energy from start to finish. If the dogs referenced in the band name are pleasant, they are certainly not docile. Schwing’s distorted guitar howls and snarls, and Jackson’s drums charge and lash out all over the place. For all their noisiness, these improvisations are far from pure abstraction. Schwing’s shredding is often exaggerated out of melodic vocabulary with a deep blues or folk foundation. Schwing and Jackson form a tight duo to boot; they always seem to be listening closely though rarely mirroring each other. There are not a lot of different sounds on Embrace; Schwing and Jackson doggedly focus on a specific sonic palette throughout the six tracks. This focus is part of what makes the album particularly insular for me, like the limited-but-strange biodiversity of small or remote islands.
The first three tracks “Release The Hounds”, “Quarry”, and “Stretchmarks, Pigtails, And Bloodlines” stay in a concentrated earspace of aggravated guitar and flying drums. Schwing steps things up yet another notch speed-wise on the shortest track, “Buzzcut”, with playful up-and-down shredding. “The Bagman” is the only track with a groove throughout; it’s a feral, overdriven free-rock jam with a folk-singer lyricism shining through in Schwing’s lines. Despite its volume this one is really the album’s “ballad”. Then it’s back to the brutal zone for the final “Embrace”, this time with Schwing droning apocalyptically over almost-blast-beats from Jackson. Like the previous track this one stays in a single key throughout. The metal qualities in “Embrace”, as well as the rock/folk sound of “The Bagman”, show that this music is not easily classifiable “free jazz” but rather a monumental adventure through and beyond its component genres.
Immersive and visceral, Embrace is full-body music. Far from being alien in its remoteness, it sounds like right now in all its complexity. Schwing and Jackson are feeling what they are playing with the same intense connection that I’m sure they have to the wild landscape of their island. When I finally make that trip to Australia I hypothesized about in an earlier review, I’ll be sure to visit Bruny Island and compare my own impression with what I hear on Embrace.
This is a heavy album, with a wild energy from start to finish. If the dogs referenced in the band name are pleasant, they are certainly not docile. Schwing’s distorted guitar howls and snarls, and Jackson’s drums charge and lash out all over the place. For all their noisiness, these improvisations are far from pure abstraction. Schwing’s shredding is often exaggerated out of melodic vocabulary with a deep blues or folk foundation. Schwing and Jackson form a tight duo to boot; they always seem to be listening closely though rarely mirroring each other. There are not a lot of different sounds on Embrace; Schwing and Jackson doggedly focus on a specific sonic palette throughout the six tracks. This focus is part of what makes the album particularly insular for me, like the limited-but-strange biodiversity of small or remote islands.
The first three tracks “Release The Hounds”, “Quarry”, and “Stretchmarks, Pigtails, And Bloodlines” stay in a concentrated earspace of aggravated guitar and flying drums. Schwing steps things up yet another notch speed-wise on the shortest track, “Buzzcut”, with playful up-and-down shredding. “The Bagman” is the only track with a groove throughout; it’s a feral, overdriven free-rock jam with a folk-singer lyricism shining through in Schwing’s lines. Despite its volume this one is really the album’s “ballad”. Then it’s back to the brutal zone for the final “Embrace”, this time with Schwing droning apocalyptically over almost-blast-beats from Jackson. Like the previous track this one stays in a single key throughout. The metal qualities in “Embrace”, as well as the rock/folk sound of “The Bagman”, show that this music is not easily classifiable “free jazz” but rather a monumental adventure through and beyond its component genres.
Immersive and visceral, Embrace is full-body music. Far from being alien in its remoteness, it sounds like right now in all its complexity. Schwing and Jackson are feeling what they are playing with the same intense connection that I’m sure they have to the wild landscape of their island. When I finally make that trip to Australia I hypothesized about in an earlier review, I’ll be sure to visit Bruny Island and compare my own impression with what I hear on Embrace.
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