Dusted Reviews
Artist: Wolf Eyes Album: Fuck Pete Larson Label: Wabana Review date: Aug. 22, 2005 |
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In contrast to the ever-increasing throngs of revisionist psychedelia reissues, the Wabana label has staked its own territory with a series heralding and fetishizing contemporary psychedelic music. Wolf Eyes' Fuck Pete Larsen is one of three noxious-purple digipacked albums that Wabana has helped make the subtle leap from limited edition LP to limited edition CD. In this particular case however, the LP title is the only thing that survived the jump.
Like the Acid Mothers Temple and Sunburned Hand of the Man records that complete the initial releases of this series, Fuck Pete Larsen is an album that attempts to reach past the laziness of conditioned and passive listening. Here, despite the allegedly jarring and confrontational aspects of noise music, Wolf Eyes' caustic palette is really a cloak for an extremely hazy and hypnotic listen. These two sides are a continuation of a search for a wholly immersive experience; the volume and velocity continually roars and dissipates, blurring the distinction between the two. Despite the low-quality tape fidelity, this album occupies the entire room and requires every square inch, effectively subduing the listener.
As noted elsewhere, Wolf Eyes is liberating and unrestrained music, unburdened by the baggage of reactionary noise tactics and easily tossed-off gestures. However, unlike the more lauded, and perhaps more intricately organized Wolf Eyes releases, Fuck Pete Larsen doesn't particularly feel like a pained affair. The oppressive rhythms and gore leanings are largely absent and the overall mood is playfully experimental and disorienting. There is a honed sense of composition here, and through elliptical tape collage, the band manages to consistently introduce new ideas into the mix. Perhaps due to the sliced and diced nature of the recording, especially on the second track, there is a sense of constant sonic variety and flux. Like Sun Ra's band - who, by enrollment obligation, were required to live with him around the clock and eat, sleep, and socialize according to his design - this album plays as a candid, somewhat sloppy outpouring from the group's life.
On Fuck Pete Larsen, Wolf Eyes have made another contribution to the cannon of free music. Rather than unleashing torrents of knee-jerk abuse and shock tactics, here the music is a call to engagement. It's not the technical or lucid tour-de-force that critics pinned on Burned Mind, but the joy and lack of inhibition on these recordings suggest a better possible musical culture.
By Matt Wellins
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