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 PETIT
MAL
A Sense of Closure
2002
Zenflesh
63:59
Petit Mal is, as the sleeve notes put it, "Jim Kaiser and an array
of broken equipment". This new recording represents Petit Mal's most imaginative
and most diverse outing to date: the cracked strum that characterised
previous releases energised by thoughtful excursions into increasingly
bizarre territory. Two particularly successful tracks in this context
are 'An Unsightly Emotional Outburst', with its drifting voices at sea
on a raft of radio static, and 'Bones of a Brittle Nature', a pounding,
nebulous mass of distortion. Sandwiched between these two efforts, the
fifteen minute long 'Too Late (The Last Goodbye)' provides another highlight,
with a swarm of brooding menace rising painfully from an unmade bed of
whining electronics. Melancholy, pensive and fragile, Petit Mal makes
great early morning listening: specifically great hangover listening.
Good music for sitting staring out of the bedroom window at the pouring
rain and contemplating stringing yourself up over the stairwell too, come
to that. Expressive, visual and strangely calming - despite its uneasiness
- A Sense of Closure sounds a lot like Alan (Knurl) Bloor's recordings
under the 'Pholde' moniker: thoughtful, disturbing stuff. Friedrich Nietzsche
once commented that God cannot recommend a king, but that doesn't stop
this Gott recommending this Kaiser. It is a great shame that this excellent
recording is not more widely available: those of you fortunate enough
to live in the vicinity of LA can buy it at an Amoeba store, everybody
else should head for the Zenflesh website http://www.zenflesh.com
where the disc may be purchased online. 70 copies come with an exclusive
2 track CDR, available only through mailorder. I didn't get a copy, so
I can't comment on it, but my understanding is that the two tracks on
offer are entitled 'Obsessive' and 'Compulsive', and are in the same experimental
vein as the main album, albeit noisier.
STEWART GOTT - 27 February 2002
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