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 EXIT
HUMAN
Arvada
2001
Direct Hit
60:15
A twenty-first century concept album, no less. It was for this, then,
that I left The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway out for the bin men
the morning after Peel played She's Lost Control Again for the
very first time, all those years ago. Exit Human have gone to elaborate
lengths to make clear that this disc tells a story, the tale revolving
around the escape of an AI organism from a secret laboratory. Those of
you interested enough to read more of this can do so, at length, at http://exithuman.com:
you can buy the disc there too, and the wonderfully weird pictures of
the "mad scientists" involved may even persuade you to do so. Musically
I had been expecting some sort of Gary Numan/Kraftwerk "Plug me in, strip
me down" routine. Instead the listener is treated to an exceptionally
inventive, brilliantly executed nineteen-minute-long opening track, the
first thirteen minutes of which are pure computer gibber, and sweet music
to my ears. The following seven tracks, while more conventional in structure
and instrumentation, are so far off the wall they're hanging out in the
garden shooting up with the fairies. Exit Human have a taste for melody,
and having captured one they hang it up by its ears, tear its guts out,
then stuff the whole mess back inside the wound and start all over again.
At times this comes over like Neil Young doing Trans, at others
like The Young Gods at their most soulful, or O'Rang's Fields and Waves.
A vocalist, sounding like Jarboe sitting on a stinging nettle, is let
loose on such lyrical gems as "I feel like a balloon in Roswell/ like
a baby in an abandoned well" ('Anybody') and "I've faded in your bright
twilight/ I've been the bird, now I'm the kite" ('Your Earth'). Like many
a decent record - Scott Walker's Tilt for instance - this sails
a perilous course between genius and risible naivety and ends up bruised
and bleeding on the right side of the divide (just about). I'm glad I
took the effort to listen to this twice.
STEWART GOTT - 1 August 2001
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