It's okay if you don't get the name right the first time-- it takes a couple of run-throughs before it becomes easily pronounceable. A combination of Charlie Parker's "Ah-Leu-Ch" and "Zapatista," the name is meant to suggest both the instrumental band's politics in lieu of lyrics (the long-short: they align themselves with the oppressed and marginalized) and their approach to music. No, they don't play anything you could even remotely call "bop," but the improvisational élan that Bird and his contemporaries brought to music is definitely the order of the day. Ahleuchatistas do their version of bop in a manner more reminiscent of mid-70s King Crimson or the on-and-off Laswell/Frith/Hayward project Massacre and-- although this is just their first album-- they pull it off surprisingly well.
The trio hails from Asheville, North Carolina, a picturesque town in the Appalachians I previously knew only from a quick news bit about a pickled frog being found at a local fast food joint. Which makes some sense: the band's sound is definitely more pickled frog than it is bucolic mountain scenery. The interplay ranges from ridiculously tight, turn-on-a-pinhead careening to barely controlled chaos, and all points between. Just when you think they've lost the plot completely, they hit you with a fistful of razor blades and march lockstep over your corpse with odd-metered, pants-soiling grooves.
Seriously, recording a nearly hour-long album with nothing but a guitar, bass and drums-- there's nary a guest vocal or even a sample to lean on-- without boring you, me, and both of our mothers half to death is tricky stuff, but I dare say Ahleuchatistas have done it. Guitarist Shane Perlowin is apparently allergic to all effects aside from reverb, but bassist Derek Poteat makes up for that with varying shades of scuzzbucket fuzz and tastefully employed chorus and octave pedals. Drummer Sean Dail keeps his kit stripped and makes the most of just a few basic sounds. His hi-hat control is especially impressive, and it essentially makes a couple of these songs all on its own.
The AK-47s and apocalyptic gore that bristle from the album artwork don't take long to materialize, rising in a methodical swell on the cacophonous "Intro" and blazing in full glory on "The Machines Became Cognizant". On that track, Perlowin's clean-tone clusters buzz like an angry hive of bees as the drums scatter and the bass stretches out into a percolating pattern. "Lacerate" is all odd meters and dynamic interplay, the band flipping between ballet shoes and combat boots, while Dail's hi-hat pushes the final charge at breakneck speed. "A Thought Like a Hammer" steps it up further still, with guitar figures that you could even call catchy and pummeling bursts of violent riffage.
Ahleuchatistas take a break from the bloodsport on "I Don't Remember Falling Asleep Here", an elegiac meditation of sparse guitar and growling, pitch-shifted bass. And they save two of the nastiest tracks for last: "Empath/Every" starts with a lulling melodic passage and weird counterrhythmic guitar runs, but builds naturally to a punishing head with distorted bass, boiling guitar, and flagellant drumming. Meanwhile, "Lament for Bhopal" (the title of which references a 1984 Methyl Isocyanate leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India that killed thousands and still causes birth defects in the region) opens with a dark descent into entropic noisemaking and moves between quiet menace and brutal assault with frightening purpose.
This all makes for a record that will surely be exhausting for people who aren't into instrumental confrontation. For those who are, however, it's supremely rewarding. Listening to this record reminded me of having my mind blown by the first Massacre album, and though it's not quite up to that standard, it's certainly close. The real test for Ahleuchatistas will be to see if they can improve on this their next time out, but for now, On the Culture Industry is one hell of a starting place-- and worthy of all the pretension their bandname implies.
