‘Trout Mask Replica’ Part 1.

‘Trout Mask Replica’ is an album that broke just about every rule in the Rock’n'Roll book.

Musically there are practically no melodies. Few ’tunes’ that you can hum along to. Ridiculously unusual time signatures are difficult enough in their own right, but when each instrument plays to a different one within the same song, even the most ardent of foot-tappers is liable to give up. And just for good measure, the instruments don’t seem to be playing the roles they normally do within Rock - even weird Rock. The drums don’t often create a beat that drives the songs. The last thing the bass is doing is providing any kind of metronomic framework for the other instruments to play on top of. In fact, in total contrast, it’s often the most melodic instrument on the album.

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The Velvet’s first album (see ABON 0092) contained a wide variety of song types, styles and sounds - from bittersweet, twisted pop songs sung by the Hungarian ice-maiden Nico to distortion-heavy Bo-Diddley-from-another-planet-inspired guitar riffing. But even in the guitar-heavy rockers on that album Lou Reed’s lyrics were prominent in the mix and in revolutionising what could and what couldn’t or shouldn’t be said in a Rock or Pop song.

By the time we reach 1968 and the second Velvets’ album (‘White Light/White Heat’) all the subtlety and narrative focus of the first album - and Nico herself - had been jettisoned. In favour of all-out noise-assault. It had been there in patches on the first album - in ‘Run, Run, Run’ for example - but on the second it was given full rein. And if Lou’s words on the first album liberated lyrics from teenage innocence and naive unworldliness then the guitars, feedback, distortion and dollops of wailing organ noise on the second did something similar for music.

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Another of those beautifully simple rock songs that takes repetition as a theme and then, through varying the theme subtly creates a sound that is both hypnotic and electrifying. In many ways another spiritual successor to Neu (see ABON 0003) but with layered guitars and voices playing the repetitive part of Neu’s Motorik drumming.
This song was recorded in the twilight of The Clean’s career. They’d started in 1981, sounding like a New Zealand take on the Velvet Underground with occasional early Stooges leanings. Loud, abrasive, spiky and often very very good. By 2001 they were confident enough to adjust their angle of attack and attempt to engage the listener without resorting to throwing in the kitchen sink. And to realise that repetition can (perhaps paradoxically) be the basis of not only the most beautiful, hypnotic music but also when done brilliantly – as on ‘Stars’ – the most electrifying and arresting.
Recorded 2001.
Available on the cd ‘The Getaway’: Amazon