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It's funny: while the music itself is probably more popular in the U.S.
than anywhere else, few of Progressive Rock's major bands -- past or
present -- are American. Djam Karet are one of the rare exceptions. Their
career, now spanning nearly 15 years, has seen this still largely
self-managed band develop a unique and instantly recognisable style, and
become one of the best bands in the genre. Recent highlights of their work
include 1993's Collaborator, an album of songs built around sound
snippets provided by a variety of ambient and Progressive artists, and the
1997 release The Devouring -- their first on the Cuneiform label.
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Djam Karet began their recording career with a self-distributed cassette,
No Commercial Potential, which their 1998 CD Still No
Commercial Potential commemorates. While recording techniques have
changed substantially over the last 15 years (Still No Commercial
Potential is an all-digital recording of excellent quality), this new
release returns to the totally improvised, 'live in the studio' format of
the early tape and showcases the band's amazing ability to create
tightly interlocking, moody instrumental pieces which casually involve
their listeners and draw them into the Djam Karet sound. This isn't music
for short, 'radio-friendly' attention spans, though: no song on the
70-minute CD falls below the seven minute mark, and the final track
"Strange Wine from a Twisted Fruit" runs to nearly 29 minutes.
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Time passes quickly with this CD, though. The opener "No Vacancy at the
Hotel of Noise" shows off the band at their best, with the lead guitar duo
of Gayle Ellett and Mike Henderson swapping their trademark moaning and
wailing, long-sustained, moody lines on a solid structural foundation from
the rhythm section -- it's no wonder both guitarists list the E-Bow as part
of their instrumentarium. The introspective, melancholy mood continues
throughout the first few pieces, with "Twilight in Lonely Lands" evoking
perhaps the unreal tranquility of deserted night-time cityscapes, and "Room
24, Around Noon" beginning as if with a slow-motion study of rock music,
and then propelled into a lazy jam by the drummer.
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With its somewhat 'ethnic' sound, "The Black Line" presents the band's
experimental side, thanks to the presence of various percussive
instruments, mock birdsong, and bassist Henry J. Osborne's quite enjoyable
didgeridoo work. He and drummer Chuck Oken Jr. on tablas are really the
main feature of this standout track, while the relatively restrained
guitars take a supporting role for a change. "Night, But No Darkness", by
contrast, is perhaps the weakest piece of the album, starting with a drum
rhythm which fails to flow, and relatively uncoordinated instrumental work
at the beginning. Here the all-improvised nature of the music on this album
appears to let the band down for once, although Mike Henderson's solo
manages to rescue some consistency towards the end. Indeed, the partial
failure of this track only emphasises the high quality of the other
improvs.
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The nearly half-hour "Strange Wine from Twisted Fruit" soon makes the
previous piece forgotten, though. It once again demonstrates what makes
Djam Karet great: the dual guitar leads from Ellett and Henderson, with a
pallette of sounds from spacy restraint to glittering solos, and the close
interplay between Osborne and Oken, moving effortlessly between hypnotic
grooves and sparse, effective percussion. "Strange Wine" negotiates a
course between these sides, giving each of the four musicians the chance to
shine, but emphasising most of all that this is the work of a band at the
height of their creativity.
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What's perhaps most astonishing about this CD is that it is, if the liner
notes are right, "wholly improvised with no predetermined structure, key or
rhythm", and presented here without further overdubs: none of these songs,
except perhaps "Night", would be out of place on any of the properly
'composed' Djam Karet albums. Some Prog traditionalists may dislike this
album, and others in the band's catalogue, for its frequent downright
grooviness -- a particularly American attribute, perhaps --, but Djam Karet
fans will certainly love it; as it is a limited release, signed by the
band, however, they may need to be fast in getting their copy. (I received
number 33 of 750, so a few should still be left.) Commercial potential or
not, there's no doubting the musicianship on this CD.
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Details
Still No Commercial Potential, by Djam Karet.
Produced by Djam Karet.
HC Productions, cat. no. HC 009.
70 mins.
The CD is available from the band's own Website,
and from many online CD vendors, including Cuneiform.
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Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Axel Bruns. "Wailing Well: Djam Karet's 'Still No Commercial Potential'." M/C Reviews 10 May 1999.
[your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/music/djam.html>.
Chicago style:
Axel Bruns, "Wailing Well: Djam Karet's 'Still No Commercial Potential'," M/C Reviews 10 May 1999,
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/music/djam.html> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Axel Bruns. (1999) Wailing well: Djam Karet's 'Still no commercial potential'. M/C Reviews 10 May 1999.
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/music/djam.html> ([your date of access]).
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![[image]](http://www.djamkaret.com/graphics/still.jpg)