Inside The Noise Floor: Flux Hound —Demolished Man (SUB002)
Punk-ish jazzster weirdos Flux Hound have strayed onto the dark side, the Melbourne sextet re-releasing their complete discography on Substatik.
There’s a particular sound the mind makes when it folds in on itself. The scream of the sigh. The deafening quiet release when thought loses all rationale. This is the space where Flux Hound built Demolished Man.
There’s no beginning or ending on Demolished Man (Flux Hound’s debut album originally released in 2016) merely an acknowledgement that something is indeed happening. The “opening” track Black Diagram materializes from nowhere, weather-esque, sneaking up on the unsuspecting listener caught without a sonic umbrella. One rolling hum in the chest cavity later, and we’re off into the oddball netherworld.
The band call this psychological topography.
Inspired by the 1953 science fiction novel The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, Flux Hound’s Demolished Man takes heed of the warnings proffered in the book, stalking the corridors of paranoia, guilt, shame, and burden, by crafting slow, deliberate rhythms that build into unpleasant climax.
“The novel’s protagonist becomes totally paranoid after experiencing these recurring visions of a man with no face. Negative emotion. We thought we could create a face with no words, to bring a sense of tangibility to our own negative emotion.”
He’s somewhat of an enigma Zachery Bryan, Flux Hound’s founder and mainstay. Each fragment of his many compositions are designed to stitch together in “cut-up” form to tell a tale, to foment new ideas, to elicit extreme emotion, even to educate. Their album The Numb Sermon (2018) tells the story of a heroin addict running the gamut from pleasure to addiction to death, only for us to witness a new addict being groomed at the end of the album. 2023’s The Forgetting Curve soundscapes the deterioration of memory, beginning crisply, sharp and brilliant, only to close out in a dull hum. And here, on Demolished Man, the recording that started it all, we witness a collapse in reverse. Opening track Black Diagram is testament to that, and is quite an uncomfortable listen.
At times, Demolished Man feels like the score to a forgotten noir — a bum detective wandering his own subconscious, following a trail of smoke and memory. Other times it feels like ritual, like Bryan is conducting a séance, with Digger McClure (guitars) Fisher Evans (bass and vocals) Virgil Brock (saxophone) and James ‘Jimbo’ Tagg (drums) acting as touts at the gateway to hell, the only door that does open, luring unsuspecting paranoiacs into the pits, promising fortunes, delivering nothing. Maybe that’s just me.
But it’s not all doom and gloom — bawdy humor and dry wit also play their parts, with two lyrical tracks shaking the album in unexpected directions. Track 3 Lamb Of Data, for example, is an incredible romp, calling the spirits of Rush and The Mars Volta to deliver a prog/fusion masterpiece. Alternating leads from Bryan and McClure are worth the price of admission alone, but it’s Virgil’s delinquent sax and Fisher Evans’ rollicking bass and quirky vocal delivery that steal the show.
Lamb of Data
Wired in Ash
Halo of nerves
Iconoclast
Ate the bread from a cooling fan
Drank His blood from thee severed hand
Soft command soft command
Intent cannot be revoked
A fascinating psychological tidbit about Demolished Man is that the entire album was recorded in near-darkness at the behest of Zachery Bryan.
“We set up the studio to be as uncomfortable as possible. No chairs, dull red forty watt bulbs, a cicada sound effect on a continuous loop, no food, no water, and above all, no speaking. It’s amazing how quickly all past thought dissipates when discomfort controls the present.”
The whole project is positively Beefheartian: cruel, ugly, seducing nerves and neurons that have no business being seduced. And it works. If you’ve ever wondered if sound exists post-death, whether your demise will have an accompanying soundtrack, Demolished Man is it. And when it’s all done and dusted, who’s left to document the debris, but a lone man whining about not getting enough Italian transvestite pussy…
We snake down Saviola scavenging a cleavage peek
At Raven standing mistletoe beneath the whorehouse light
Hotfoot down Manini, crotch first
Erections in plain sight
Flux Hound will always be students of the edge — of what happens when structure crumbles but hasn’t yet disintegrated. Chasing noise for noise’s sake? Maybe. More a chase for tranquility by bringing tension to the fore. Only then do the spaces between the notes truly shine.
Sometimes, the only way to heal the mind from demolition is to allow it to crumble a little first.
Demolished Man can be purchased via Bandcamp, or streamed everywhere else.
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