Khanate and the Sounds of Despair
Khanate has been around since 2001, when Stephen O'Malley and James Plotkin combined forces with Alan Dubin and Tim Wyskida. This quartet has released 3 discs to date, each more dense and fucked-up than what came before, and with the new Capture and Release disc they assume the throne of the most disturbingly bleak band in the world. Primarily concerning themselves with rumbling tonality and the distorted harmonics produced by massive amplification, their music alternates between the enveloping ambience of O'Malley's other project SUNN O)))) and Melvins-type crawling tempos to create a new form of American music. Tangentially associated with metal, this band is far more adventurous in its song structure to be pegged as such. They are a totally unique band--uncompromising and subtle, while creating some of the most defiantly uncommercial music that I have ever heard.
The aural virus began to spread for me after the self-titled 2001 release. The first time I saw them was with a friend of mine at Pianos in NYC in 2002 on a bill with the Microwaves and Vincebus Eruptum. The bill was a little strange--Microwaves were excellent but have very little to do with metal or metal influence, and Vincebus Eruptum was horrible, just horrible--and when Khanate took the stage I was not sure what to expect. They proceeded to play an hour-long set that featured material from the (at the time) upcoming Things Viral disc. I found their music to be difficult to handle, both overwhelmingly loud and distressingly disjointed. When I cannot figure out a band after seeing them live it intrigues me, so I snagged a copy of the first record on my way out of the club. In the days that followed I listened to the disc almost every day, and it grew on me like skin cancer, adhering itself to my brain with repeated listens. I loved the sound of the band--it was restrained yet remarkably powerful, and the singer's demented and anguished vocals played much more of a role in the recorded material than they did live. Guitarist O'Malley serves as the ringleader, laying down detuned chunks of riffs while bassist Plotkin doesn't play so much as ooze low-end hums and buzzes from his bass rig. Drummer Wyskida plays more sparingly than the Melvins' Dale Crover, sitting out for large spaces while the amps surge around him. Lyrically they are obsessive, with despairing imagery that deals with such light topics as murder, alienation, and suicide. In pieces like No Joy vocalist Dubin spits out impressionistic and simple phrases; other songs like the unsettling Torching Koroviev and Skin Coat feature bizarre and disorienting vocal effects that only add to the sensations of creeping madness.
2003 saw the release of the excellent Things Viral. Load Records released one of the songs as a 12"--the cleverly titled Dead--and the other 3 pieces are loooooong, with 2 nearly reaching the 20-minute mark. Dubin takes more of a leading role on this disc as his lyrics on songs like Commuted and Fields propel the music into deeper regions of the infernal world. Clipped phrases like "follow, stare, erase" and shrieks of "RED GLORY" pop out of the mix and help create what must be the first album ever made from the point of view of a serial murderer. Truly disturbing stuff. Compared to the unyielding bleakness of the first two pieces, Dead comes off like a pop song--instead of committing the acts that lead up to the object's death, this narrative comes from the point of view of a corpse. Great lines, too--"I was...not worth knowing...visible, awful, but not seen..."--that all add up to a healthy, disorienting dose of paranoia. One of the marks of this band's uniqueness is that this second full-length pissed off many a doom-metal fan; in fact it was considered by many fans of the genre to be too bleak and unrelenting. There are no hooks, no steady beats, only the ravings of Dubin in counterpoint to the staggering, jarring interjections of O'Malley's guitar and the thick malovelence of Plotkin's bass. The overall effect of this is to create a spacious, huge sound that moves like waves of oily sludge. I saw them live on the tour for this record at Northsix and they were incredible. The band has a stage presence that perfectly suits the music, turning away from their audience to commune with their amplifiers. It's beautiful stuff.
After this punishing masterwork, where would Khanate go from there? The new release (the band's first for HydraHead) seems to travel on familiar territory--two very long pieces, one 18.13 in length, the other 25.03--with lots of references to time spent with corpses, hunting, and pulling things apart and having the residue stick to your hands. Even the main guitar figures of the two songs (Capture and Release) seem to reference other, earlier songs like Dead and Fields. What has changed on this disc is the sheer expanse of the music. The spare amp buzz that begins the second piece (Release) could almost qualify as ambient, as rich, deep bass tones create a slow-moving current of sound. The band has refined itself further on this outing, staying more in the vein of the material on Things Viral than going back to the first disc. Total ensemble discipline is on full display here, as each musician uses his instrument to paint dark clouds of distortion and rhythm while not drawing attention away from the unity of the band. The compositional style keys off of the vocals much more than in the past, and Dubin is steadily emerging as one of the most unique vocalists in the genre. His voice is harsh but not guttural, screamy but not barking, and his use of effects on his voice helps create an extra psychedelic texture for the music. In general, this release opens up their sound a little bit, making them less claustrophobic without removing any of the weirdness that makes them such a singular band.
To say that Khanate is a band without precedent would be hyperbolic; they are, however, one of the most original bands in rock music in the last 25 years. Nobody sounds like these guys. And nobody could, even if they tried.
The aural virus began to spread for me after the self-titled 2001 release. The first time I saw them was with a friend of mine at Pianos in NYC in 2002 on a bill with the Microwaves and Vincebus Eruptum. The bill was a little strange--Microwaves were excellent but have very little to do with metal or metal influence, and Vincebus Eruptum was horrible, just horrible--and when Khanate took the stage I was not sure what to expect. They proceeded to play an hour-long set that featured material from the (at the time) upcoming Things Viral disc. I found their music to be difficult to handle, both overwhelmingly loud and distressingly disjointed. When I cannot figure out a band after seeing them live it intrigues me, so I snagged a copy of the first record on my way out of the club. In the days that followed I listened to the disc almost every day, and it grew on me like skin cancer, adhering itself to my brain with repeated listens. I loved the sound of the band--it was restrained yet remarkably powerful, and the singer's demented and anguished vocals played much more of a role in the recorded material than they did live. Guitarist O'Malley serves as the ringleader, laying down detuned chunks of riffs while bassist Plotkin doesn't play so much as ooze low-end hums and buzzes from his bass rig. Drummer Wyskida plays more sparingly than the Melvins' Dale Crover, sitting out for large spaces while the amps surge around him. Lyrically they are obsessive, with despairing imagery that deals with such light topics as murder, alienation, and suicide. In pieces like No Joy vocalist Dubin spits out impressionistic and simple phrases; other songs like the unsettling Torching Koroviev and Skin Coat feature bizarre and disorienting vocal effects that only add to the sensations of creeping madness.
2003 saw the release of the excellent Things Viral. Load Records released one of the songs as a 12"--the cleverly titled Dead--and the other 3 pieces are loooooong, with 2 nearly reaching the 20-minute mark. Dubin takes more of a leading role on this disc as his lyrics on songs like Commuted and Fields propel the music into deeper regions of the infernal world. Clipped phrases like "follow, stare, erase" and shrieks of "RED GLORY" pop out of the mix and help create what must be the first album ever made from the point of view of a serial murderer. Truly disturbing stuff. Compared to the unyielding bleakness of the first two pieces, Dead comes off like a pop song--instead of committing the acts that lead up to the object's death, this narrative comes from the point of view of a corpse. Great lines, too--"I was...not worth knowing...visible, awful, but not seen..."--that all add up to a healthy, disorienting dose of paranoia. One of the marks of this band's uniqueness is that this second full-length pissed off many a doom-metal fan; in fact it was considered by many fans of the genre to be too bleak and unrelenting. There are no hooks, no steady beats, only the ravings of Dubin in counterpoint to the staggering, jarring interjections of O'Malley's guitar and the thick malovelence of Plotkin's bass. The overall effect of this is to create a spacious, huge sound that moves like waves of oily sludge. I saw them live on the tour for this record at Northsix and they were incredible. The band has a stage presence that perfectly suits the music, turning away from their audience to commune with their amplifiers. It's beautiful stuff.
After this punishing masterwork, where would Khanate go from there? The new release (the band's first for HydraHead) seems to travel on familiar territory--two very long pieces, one 18.13 in length, the other 25.03--with lots of references to time spent with corpses, hunting, and pulling things apart and having the residue stick to your hands. Even the main guitar figures of the two songs (Capture and Release) seem to reference other, earlier songs like Dead and Fields. What has changed on this disc is the sheer expanse of the music. The spare amp buzz that begins the second piece (Release) could almost qualify as ambient, as rich, deep bass tones create a slow-moving current of sound. The band has refined itself further on this outing, staying more in the vein of the material on Things Viral than going back to the first disc. Total ensemble discipline is on full display here, as each musician uses his instrument to paint dark clouds of distortion and rhythm while not drawing attention away from the unity of the band. The compositional style keys off of the vocals much more than in the past, and Dubin is steadily emerging as one of the most unique vocalists in the genre. His voice is harsh but not guttural, screamy but not barking, and his use of effects on his voice helps create an extra psychedelic texture for the music. In general, this release opens up their sound a little bit, making them less claustrophobic without removing any of the weirdness that makes them such a singular band.
To say that Khanate is a band without precedent would be hyperbolic; they are, however, one of the most original bands in rock music in the last 25 years. Nobody sounds like these guys. And nobody could, even if they tried.
posted by alyosha mcbain at 9:23 AM
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