Jackie O Motherfucker - Volume 1 : Fig.5 & Liberation (Special Edition)

A Special Edition Jackie O Motherfucker release of both Liberation and Fig.5 re-issues together in packaging especially designed by Alex Hornsby // FIG.5, Jackie-O Motherfucker's unprecedented Fig. 5, the group's  first CD release, presents a dim and unsettling archaeology of American music. Released in the wake of the American century, it's the  rst unapologetically brilliant piece of experimental music I've heard this year. Somehow constructed bereft of any postmodern irony, Fig. 5 transforms a commanding grasp on the celebrated tributaries of American music-- jazz, Appalachian folk, soul, African-American spirituals, West coast surf-rock, Protestant hymns, Louisville post-rock, bluegrass, electronic noise-- into an autochthonous gospel. Jackie-O Motherfucker-- two multi-instrumentalists, Tom Greenwood and Jef Brown and the cadre of eclectic talents with whom they surround themselves-- abandoned the remix loop jazz-fusion of their  rst two albums (available only as LPs) and literally emerged from the basement and the soil with a masterpiece.  For all its disparate strands, Fig. 5 is surprisingly cohesive, constructing some ratcheted new sound with junk and memory rather than laundering old sounds with the irony and veiled contempt of other pastiche exercises. The disc itself is packaged in an oddly fascinating die-cut cardboard folio, complete with snippets of Alan Lomax's celebrated American ethnomusicology. Fig. 5 is slow and plodding like time itself. This work, again, simply has no precedents. Or rather, its precedents lie in the dusty anonymities of American musical history, instead of the proud and touted monuments of our cultural past. Listen to it once if you can. It is our secret national anthem // LIBERATION, Following the critical success of their Road Cone debut Fig. 5 in 2000, Jackie-O Motherfucker released their seventh album, Liberation, in October 2001. This CD showcases the group's most experimental free-form side. The 12 musicians involved in these recordings stomp over any distinctions between rock, jazz, folk, or any other musical idiom for that matter. They jam. When a structure arises, either spontaneously or not, the general feel of the music tends to get closer to psychedelic rock and post-rock, something like a freer Godspeed You Black Emperor! or Mushroom, or a more drug-induced Trummer ora Collective. The 12-headed beast is in a constant state of metamorphosis. When you think you've got it  gured out, it throws something unexpected at you, like the slow-paced, sensuous Dino Valenti song "Something on Your Mind." Liberation features percussion, electric guitar, vibes, saxophone, violin, some electronics, even a bit of non-intrusive turntablism. Fans of trippy space rock will be in heaven during "The Pigeon" and "Peace on Earth." At all times the music remains calm, paced, introspective in a sense, but all the while cathartic, liberating. These people can amass a whole lot of noise but keep it gentle. Some passages are overlong, but not many, which is unusual in this kind of records. As hodgepodgy, confused, and eclectic their blend may seem, they master it and make it exciting.

Tracklisting:

FIG.5:

1. Peace On Earth
2. Ray-O-Graph
3. Northern Line
4. In Between
5. Something On Your Mind
6. Tea Party
7. The Pigeon
8. Pray

LIBERATION:

1. Analogue Skillet
2. Native Einstein
3. Your Cells Are In Motion
4. Go Down, Old Hannah
5. Amazing Grace
6. Beautiful September
7. Chiapas! I Must Go There!
8. Michigan Avenue Social Club
9. Madame Curie
10. Amazing Grace (Dub Version)

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