We are at war. People differ on exactly what the nature of that war is, where we should be fighting it, and how effective our current tactics are, but people are dying in more than one country, violence is a daily headline, and the political discourse in this country inevitably strays to it-- even as we try to focus on other things. It makes sense that the art of our times should reflect this basic fact, and indeed, it's begun to; from novelists like Philip Roth to aging rock stars like R.E.M., basic questions of American values and power are being addressed. America is polarized-- perhaps moreso than at any other time in the post-Vietnam era-- and so it happens that even artists whose art is devoid of words or open sentiment take pains to politicize what they do, and Asheville, NC's Ahleuchatistas are no exception. For the second time in less than a year, they've released an album of confrontational, heady instrumentals that reflect the conflict and violence of our era, and packaged it in provocative artwork.
The "tistas" portion of the bandname is a reference to Mexico's indigenous peoples' Zapatista movement, named originally for would-be Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. (He never did affect his desired coup.) The band means this reference as a sort of shoutout to oppressed people around the world and throughout history-- indeed the "Ahleucha" portion of their name comes from the title of an improvisational piece by a black American, Charlie Parker-- and the cover of this album puts their thoughts about the current war in Iraq, on display for anyone who cares to look. Painted by Courtney Chappell, it's a powerful, cubistically fractured skyline (presumably the mosque-dotted profile of Baghdad) being bombed by an F-15, as obviously Muslim women contort in agony in the foreground. The primary subject matter of the image actually shouldn't cause much controversy in my view-- is there anyone with a conscience who doesn't sympathize with the poor civilians caught in the middle of all of this?-- but the implication of an essentially American-perpetrated atrocity might not play terribly well to those not on the left.
Okay, okay, so the guys in the trio aren't thrilled that we're in Iraq, but what does that have to do with their instrumental music? Well, everything and nothing. Out of context, it's precise, brutal troublefunk-- pointilistic free jazz for the scrapyard set and not for ears that are too attached to consonance. In context, it's bombs over Baghdad, firefights, and blood running in the streets. You don't have to read it solely as a critique of American force, either-- it works just as well as a sonic allegory for the daily atrocities visited upon the Iraqi populace by various factions of the insurgency.
Ahleuchatistas may play heavy, challenging music with a lot of baggage, but they keep their approach steadfastly clear: Distortion is absent from both the bass of Derek Poteat and the guitar of Shane Perlowin, and Sean Dail is a brilliantly economical drummer, reminiscent in his best moments of Bill Bruford in his King Crimson prime. Poteat and Perlowin play a game of strike and counterstrike, mimicking war's sick spiral, and the intensity level is ridiculously high for the album's full 28-minute duration. It's a concise and wickedly effective concentration and the sturm und drang that they stretched twice as far on their debut, On the Culture Industry.
Ultimately, when listening to The Same and the Other, you can take the Wassily Kandinsky approach-- abstract art is concrete, he famously insisted-- or you can take the more tempting and likely approach and read it as an allegory for contemporary strife and suffering. After all, even much abstract art carries a title and a story (pretense, if you will), and ignoring those things limits the experience to a viewing exercise. On that score, this album is a powerful statement and an explosive piece of music.
