It took time for 2005's low-flying The Complete Guide to Insufficiency to penetrate even fringe-folk's radar. But many who now know it consider David Thomas Broughton's gutting first LP a minor masterpiece. Notorious for lines like, "I wouldn't take her to execution/ I wouldn't take her to a live sex show/ I wouldn't piss or shit on her would I/ Because I love her so," the album paces the vague, uneasy borderlands between horror and comedy, danger and play, reality and performance. Just as arresting as his narratives of murder, dismemberment, rape, suicide, and other themes more typical to Norwegian death metal bands than polite singer-songwriters are Broughton's thick and knotty ropes of sound-- his quavering wounded-beast baritone woven with guitar and ambient noise loops.
David Thomas Broughton vs. 7 Hertz is the London-based musician's first major, or majorish (even though it exceeds an hour, Spanish label Acuarela is marketing it as a mini-album), release of new material since then. Like Complete Guide, vs. 7 Hertz memorializes in five tracks a largely improvised live performance, with minimal post-production mop-up. Supported-- perhaps I should say goaded-- by Leeds chamber quintet 7 Hertz, Broughton notches up the noise and maximizes the meander. So this probably won't be the record that wins the unconverted. Still, there's plenty here for Broughton faithful. "Weight of My Love", with its desperation, plain-cloth melody, and archaic syntax ("I dig you a grave for to sleep, my love"), draws on ancient murder balladry while voicing the sharp and specific woes-- too skint to afford a pasty from the corner shop or transport to Leeds-- of contemporary Britain's margin-dwellers. "River Outlet" is a mesmerizing 22-minute meditation on memory and loss, and "Fisted Hand" is disconcertingly lovely as it swathes violence in tender string-plucks and lilting melody.
Despite its pugilistic title, any implied opposition between the folkie and classically schooled combo proves a feint. Broughton's amalgam of Northern soul, Faheyesque blues, pastoral folk, and machine manipulation pairs surprisingly well with 7 Hertz's classical-jazz-experimental palette, and the ad-hoc band seems unanimously committed to the aesthetics of chance and privileging of process over product. Compositional free-form occasionally, as in "No Great Shakes", finds Broughton awkwardly bumping elbows with 7 Hertz. And "Hands"'s spitting amp is more annoying than conceptually provocative. But the spontaneous arrangements usually work. Rusty violins saw and a double bass pecks at "Weight"'s simple reiterated chord progression, building to a combustible convergence of scribbled strings and lowing clarinet. "River"'s sampled fret squeaks chirp like sonar signals and loop, unnervingly, like hungry sharks, so when the track finally erupts into a hysteria of noise, it's the only satisfying resolution.
At just over a minute, "Jolly (Interlude)" seems like a spell-breaking joke, a crude rebuttal to anyone who'd assert that the guy never lightens up. But it's actually integral to vs. 7 Hertz and any complex understanding of Broughton-- whose maudlin vibrato always holds a hint of perverse humor and whose stage manner reportedly swerves from downcast to slapstick. "Jolly" signals, if it weren't already apparent, that Broughton isn't going to provide emotional shortcuts for his audience.
