Bill's Hyperbolic Music Reviews #8: Caspar Brötzmann Massaker- Home

Holy shit, how have I not reviewed this album yet? Caspar Brötzmann Massaker is led by (surprise, surprise) Caspar Brötzmann, son of German free-improvising saxophonist Peter Brötzmann (whose music is legendary in free jazz circles) and one hell of a guitar player in his own right. Actually, "playing" the guitar is really much too simplistic a term to describe what Caspar does, but I just tried to describe what, in fact, he does, and failed abjectly, so maybe it's time to move on to the album.

Home, released in 1995, actually features no new CBM material, but focuses exclusively on material from the ensemble's first two albums, because those were never released outside of Europe, and one of them sounds like it was recorded in a barn with blankets over the microphones, so a rerecording/reissue was pretty much a necessity. Plus, even though this isn't free-improvised music, the compositions are pretty flexible, so it's not a stale retread, AND, these versions are way fucking better, particularly the epic, 15-minute version of the band's theme song (well, in my mind, anyway) "Massaker". The original version, with the weak-ass fusiony drummer that Caspar used to have in his band, was slower, and had a vague swing feel that did NOT jibe with how intense the song was clearly supposed to be. This one, however, has Caspar's second and best drummer, Danny Arnold Lommen, pounding the SHIT outta that 10/4 ostinato, as bassist Eduardo Delgado-Lopez plays one dissonant chord in time with his bass drum hits (which he spends most of CBM's records doing, actually, as busy bass parts would've made these songs sound like muddy shit) and Caspar melts faces with a fiery solo. Then, things calm down for a minute as he intones some spooky lyrics in a comically German accent, but a second firestorm is quickly ushered in with a 32nd-note pattern from Lommen that returns the band to the original bit that I just realized is a little bit like the ostinato in Holst's "Mars". Anyway, it's awesome, and the pattern I just described is basically what all these songs do. Lommen repeats a lopsided but powerful-as-all-hell drumbeat, Delgado-Lopez strums atonal bass chords with intense, single-minded dedication, and Brötzmann adds a thick layer of other atonal chords that generally become lengthy, jammy, avant-Hendrix solos, and sometimes some creepy-ass vocals. Then, they play another pattern or two, and either end on some sort of coda, or go back to the original pattern at, somehow, twice the intensity. It sounds boring, especially when I tell you that every song on here is at least nearly seven minutes long, but if you pay close attention, it is seriously riveting.

This album, and most of Caspar's others, should appeal to people who can appreciate noise-rock, hard rock, metal, free jazz, and huge slabs of concrete being pressed together into a dense mass of genres and huge slabs of concrete that could give you a concussion.

I give it a 400.