Newyear's Sliding into us Like a homebase Glacier

 

 by Shaun Lawton aka  Thornswrath   

no more lies     this is the age of confusion       Nothing factual 

nothing fictional   /  interchangeable 

  THIS IS THE AGE OF CONFUSION 

So, I'm listening  to   PUSCIFER LIVE AT ARCOSANTI  2LP limited pressing and its glorious. 

Santa  brought us that and also  8-Ball Bail Bonds at The Berger Barns  LIVE in Phoenix. 

These are seminal recordings not just for MJK and Puscifer but for rock history in general. 

    Dovetailing with the release of Bob Dylan's big thick meaty book The Philosophy of Modern Song (which my lovely wife got me for Xmas), I can honestly say as we plow forward through the strangest tides churned up by an  awakening and retaliatory Mom Earth  this is the time to be alive.     

Right now as we plumb the deepest fissures of our oceans in brand spanking new discoveries of thriving species surviving the intense pressures and temperatures in the thriving flux of volcanic vents even while   down around the southern poles of our planet a whole new continent begins shedding its frozen husk for an Edenic rebirth the likes of which we've been forced to only imagine.  

  

        

    This   long play  thirty-three rounds per minute revelation has been in gestation and perpetual evolution since the long ago inception  of the side project we all know and few have come to love as much of those of us who knew from the get go this was better than Tool with more promise of interesting cross pollination with its rotating platform of guests and artists invited to participate, well guess what?  It ain't too late to hop onto this ever-morphing musical monstrosity unless you just ain't got the chops to pull it off.   

   No one left crying here, I assure you.  Plenty of  scraps 'n' tossed aside moldy sinews of left over tissue for y'all to nibble on til your filthy little hearts are contented, plenty of raw heaving platters of fresh steaming meat to sink your teeth into, far too much meat and PO-TAE-TOES being churned up in the intricately spinning long curved blades of the Internet Blender Machine, plenty of voltage to plug into for that long term permanent grin you can get from being lit up by the ongoing circus sideshow we now know as our reality. 

   And Puscifer has at long last been coming into its own, of late and let me add this, if I may.  Like the endless process of individual survival we all must endure together here in this primitive urban jungle getting laced with advanced high definition digital tech to enhance our every sensation and demand of our ravenous egos for more stimulation and penetration so long as the Machine keeps  feeding on our continual generation of new generations to generate more money for the economy and more spending for our every need until...

  ...we'll be able to sit back and sift through the detritus getting filtered our way online by a digital sort of synthetic consciousness itself a simulation of what true, organic human consciousness might potentially resemble were it to present itself in any ordinate or tangible shape for recording and analyzation hence forthwith conjoining with greater loops of interconnective data on servers congregating into a Sentient Simulacrum (which is to say, nothing more than a simulation of what sentience might happen to be for the human primate family which has passed it on genetically since time immemorial). 

     The time is now (to flip over the record to side C) and lean our ears into the band covering Bullet Train to Iowa, perhaps their most popular slice of audio subversion to creep into the modern American airwaves in some time no longer definable).   Who - who.   Hoo - hoo.  

  Hootchy koo.   Here's where I focus on what Puscifer means to me. 

       Their debut V is for Vagina was the shiny chrome bait 'n' hook, many of us human fishes darting this way and that underneath the slipstream chose to not bite (I was not one of them, being instantly hooked into their sinister post-hip hop electronica sound), but for those who turned their noses up sneering they weren't "anywhere as good as Tool," that's okay in this tempestuous stew of life we can no longer seem to control quite as well as we used to, collectively.  I ain't got no beef with those who don't get it or wanna forget it or burn it down. 

   Now it's up to us individually to steer our own ways through this undulating labyrinth encroaching its imperial and impenetrable walls toward us, forcing us to stay on our toes and keep on the move to align ourselves in sync with the inexorable teeth of this grinding machine.   

   After all these years now listening to these two latest live bootlegs of Puscifer performing in their own home territory of the future 'Arizona Bay' islands of potential human habitation, gathered along the giving banks of the Verde river, lush opulence cultivated from a string of oases in the paradoxical and flourishing desert. 

    Everything's in convergence and Puscifer really just remains an exemplary outfit of post-modern troubadours fronted by the rather obviously talented singer lyricist Maynard Keenan who has propelled his main two bands (Tool and A Perfect Circle) well beyond the stratosphere of anyone's wildest expectations (and into the beckoning void of the beyond). 

   What will await us as the world keeps turning one thousand miles an hour in the wake of the world wide pandemic?  Will our favorite bands who've survived since the nineties keep producing astonishing and satisfying pieces of music as only they could possibly manage to do?   I think those of us paying attention have managed to figure out the answer to that. 

    Until next time our paths should cross, survivors.  If you've been skirting clear of Puscifer for whatever reasons,  I can only say that this PUSCIFER LIVE AT ARCOSANTI, for example, is a come round "full circle" sort of thing, much like their recent album V is for Versatile -- wherein Maynard dares to re-record each track from their auspicious debut (now a legendary hip hop post electronica album whether you like it or not) with fellow musicians putting in great performances on real instruments like actual drums played with genuine drumsticks and a real bass and guitar, etc.   

   Maynard lends his vocal reinterpretation to these classics, and let me just come out and say it, the listener's mind is simply pretty unprepared to take these reinterpretations in if it's already been hooked on the original studio recordings, but the great part is that those uninitiated with the electronic version might get their eyes opened wider even while those of us who prefer the originals are slowly coming around to some of these newer versions, piecemeal and a little bit at a time. 

    All in all,  I'm here to testify that we are in a veritable monsoon of artistic output here and now while the last few remaining days of 2022 go swirling down the proverbial drain at the end of the year. 

      Never has there been  more glorious time to be alive I remain convinced at the core of every atom of my being.    I can't even find a way to wrap this entry up,  it was enough that I managed to jump in here and dredge a few bits and pieces of my ongoing sonic journey head first through the ravaging storms of rock'n'roll.    

        Thornswrath out ...