Labels: Nacht Records
Review by: Captain Fidanza
There is a song on the Tom Waites album Mule Variations called “What’s he Building in There ?” You may have heard it if you’ve ever seen The Smartest Guys in the Room, Alex Gibney’s fantastic documentary about the fall of Enron, because it plays over the title sequence.
Anyway, I don’t know what he’s building in there, I’ve no idea, I asked him once but he was rather brusque with me, in fact I don’t think I would be entirely out of line were I to describe his manner as being downright rude.
My curiosity piqued, I set about the task of discovering exactly what he was building in there in earnest. I waited, I watched, I sneaked, I rifled, I rummaged, I slinked and I lay siege, but next to nothing could I discover about what he was building in there.
However, I could certainly hear what he was doing and it sounded like the noise on this EP. It was not a normal sound, it was not usual in anyway and at times it sounded as though all he was doing was playing that scene from Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear, where those religious maniacs sacrifice someone, over and over and over and over again, in reverse.
Who’s that laughing over there ?
Who’s that laughing over there ?
Who is that laughing over there ?
Oh, there’s nobody over there, I must have imagined it. But I could have sworn I heard someone laughing.
Someone is definitely fiddling about with a singing saw, I’ve no doubt of that. Up and down and up and down and up and down and down and up he goes. Playing, singing, sawing. Building ?
WILL YOU PLEASE TURN THAT FUCKING TELEVISION DOWN ?
I think Bill Dixon might be in there too. And the Son of Sisyphus. And Sisyphus. Rolling that big, stone ball round and round and round and round and up and up and up and up and up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up only to see it tumble back down again, all the way down the hill. Back he goes, start again, rolling the ball, up the hill.
Every sound you’ve ever heard in your life and every sound that’s never been made before are all on this here EP. They’re waiting for you, they have a story to tell you, it’s the story of what he’s building in there.