Collaboration can be a dirty word. It often lends itself to the cynical euphemism of ‘easy pickings’ or ‘this will disappoint you’. Take Lou Reed and Metallica’s spectacular misfire Lulu, or even David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s eye watering cringe party ‘Dancing in the Street’ (the video however is its enduring gift to us all). There are always exceptions— particularly last month’s Scott Walker and Sunn O))) effort, the monolithic monster Soused. Now we’re met with the joining of two equally unique forces tussling with aural space in a ‘simultaneous sonic poem’. The ice cold post-punk of Savages collides with the cosmic hard psych of London/Japan’s Bo Ningen, and the outcome is a volatile, compelling mess that will cleanse you from the memories of Bowie and Jagger in a heartbeat.
Words To The Blind originated as a live joint performance; a searing explosion which is wielded here as a singular near 38 minute track. Yes, this is one track, but it offers all the textures of an album— in fact, Words To The Blind gives more. It’s conceptual– based around the Dadaist surreal art movement and war, which you couldn’t not expect from two bands who approach their music with a highbrow audio-aesthetic approach– and it’s experimentalism at its most intense.
It begins with whispered fragments of French and Japanese dialogue flitting forebodingly over hopeless clangs of hollow guitars. Immediately it’s horror soundtrack stuff, as enchanting and thrilling as it is eerie and unsettling. By the four minute mark it’s all hallucinatory vocals and woozy feedback descending into a dark realm of sonic sludge, where the entrance suddenly seems very far away. This is sonic warfare— it’s bleak and uncompromising. Do you want to recoil? Yes, but like all good examples of horror, you can’t help but peak hesitantly through your fingers regardless.
And for good reason, because Words To The Blind is not entirely edge of your seat, horrors of war reverie. By the middle it eddies into an intense bass heavy rhythmic groove, metamorphosing into a free-form ethereal jam– a brief moment of respite among all the undulating destruction— the lull as tangled vocals plunge into the abyss, where “the skin divides to broken hearts”. Savages singer Jehnny Beth injects the timely reminder that this is not a place for calm, but a study of violence and brutality. Whirling textures of sprawling guitars annihilate the remaining minutes in a barrage of rip roaring chaos that wouldn’t sound out of place on the dirge-y acid rock of a Bo Ningen album, or the more vicious angles of Savages songs like ‘Hit Me’.
Words To The Blind is a troubling, confusing experience that admirably disregards orthodox song structures while taking the inner worlds of Savages and Bo Ningen and viscerally opening them up into something other. If you don’t like collaborations, this should be enough to make you reconsider.
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