Flying Luttenbachers - Terror Iridescence CD
SKU
ug-Explode 86
Weasel Walter: guitar, drums on 2, bass guitar on 2, bagpipe chanter, dead electronics
Tim Dahl: bass guitar
Katie Battistoni: guitar
Matt Nelson: tenor saxophone, live electronics
Sam Ospovat: drums, live electronics
“Terror Iridescence is the 4th full length release by the latter-day, New York City based reincarnation of the seminal Punk Jazz/No Wave/Brutal Prog unit The Flying Luttenbachers, and the 17th album since 1992. After all of this, longtime fans tend to expect notable creative twists to be pulled by the band with each release, and this one will not disappoint.
This time around, our heroes have issued forth a boldly abstract haunted-house salvo of dizzying surrealism, loaded with exceptionally bizarre sonic tangents. After 2021’s blistering and compositionally dense “Negative Infinity”, FLs leader Weasel Walter decided to take another tack altogether: Instead of making another rehearsal intensive album of tightly scripted action, “Terror Iridescence” was improvised completely on the spot at Colin Marston’s Menegroth studio in Queens, New York on one day in October 2021. The individual instruments were mic’d up and then, with very little discussion, the ominous 20 – minute long “Meredyth Herold” (named after the obscure actress whose utterly jawdropping and singular performance in the 1990 perverto-noir flick “Singapore Sling” mirrors the morbid chaos of the piece) began to unfold.
The main concept was to perform in reference to a click track heard only in the headphones, while Mr. Walter molded the structure in real time, cuing each player in or out and giving pointed suggestions. Once it came down to the mixing phase, it was apparent that this click track was actually an integral part of the composition and had to be included in the final mix, whereas the original idea was to mute it completely. As such, this water torture presence is a major element of continuity -an infinitely rising and falling pulse which sometimes dominates, sometimes recedes, but always reminds us of the inevitable.“