Like the disquieting stillness of a performance artist about to smash their face though a pane of glass in the name of art, the new record from Sly & the Family Drone is a strange and distressing thing. We’re overjoyed to premiere it.
The latest offering from the described ‘neo-jazz wrecking crew’, Moon is Doom Backwards is a record that doesn’t really comply with standard conventions. To try to slap a genre tag on it and be done with it would be a silly endeavour. Rather, it would be more fitting and far easier to describe the scenarios and situations that this record sounds like. These include the quiet cry of a phone ringing in the dead of night and the apprehension it invites. Or maybe the sudden stillness of encountering a possibly lifeless body discarded in an empty street at 4am. Odd scenarios indeed, but ones that perfectly indicate the trepidation, surrealism and inherent absurdism of the new record from Sly & The Family Drone.
A lurking, patient and lurching record, Moon is Doom Backwards sits somewhere in the weird unquantifiable ether that is the liminal space between avant garde neo-jazz and all-annihilating noise rock. Employing the teachings of musique concrète, here, Sly & the Family Drone inhabit the architecture of negative space and musical shadow in order to present ambience in its most maximalist form. It’s a record of noir quietude and overt meltdowns, one in which periods of loosening restraint engross more than they invite in thanks to its apprehension and possibility of violence. Basically, it’s the jazz equivalent of seeing bulldozers outside your house, but choosing to stay inside your home to see what would happen when they finally crash through the wall.
Moon is Doom Backwards is released via Human Worth, with 10% of all proceeds going towards the charity Melanoma UK and their critical work supporting those affected by the disease. Pre-order the record here, and stream Moon is Doom Backwards early excursively below.