Uz Jsme Doma at 529 Bar

From the venue:

Description

When it comes to all things in the Residents orbit, few labels have been more consistently supportive than Klanggalerie. Whether you’re looking for soundtrack and live Residents releases, Renaldo and the Loaf reissues or associated solo projects, the German label offers superb reissues with packaging and documentation to match. Adhering to its usual standards, we are given a 2010 concert in Olomouc, Czek Republic, of the band Uz Jsme Doma joined by Randy, singer of the Residents, in a retrospective that is both comprehensive and musically exciting.Projects such as this can and do fail with remarkable speed, but it’s to arranger Miroslav Wanek’s credit and to the band’s stunning musicianship that this one is such a success. The iconic sounds of industrialization that open “Moles Are Coming” (my tracklist mislabels this as “Shorty’s Lament”) from Intermission gradually bloom into a neo-Punk anthem, complete with Art Zoyd-influenced trumpet lines. The blinding moment of brassy squall midstream is perfectly timed, and the recording captures its mind-stomping resonance in the hall, generating just the right amount of disruptive angst before the crushing rhythms resume. For a healthy glimpse into the decadence of Chub world, we hear “Smack your Lips.” The arrangement is both faithful and innovative, a modulation accompanied by wonderful timbral surprises from the drum chair. Then, there are the wonderfully etched acoustic changes wrought on “Never Known Questions” as the environment is enlarged to Randy’s exhortations of “spot the rot!”Randy is in prime form throughout, especially on the emotionally charged James Brown cover “This is a Man’s Man’s Man’s world,” always a moving vehicle for his moans, sobs and shrieks. After a few moments of Crimsonesque glare and blare, he intones the first line, voice altered with the usual third, and the band hits hard, as if waiting years for that single gesture, to usher in the tune’s loping shuffle. Conversely, Randy croons his way through the heartbreaking Hank Williams staple “Six More Miles” with an intensity rivaled only by the sudden and anguished band punctuations. It is a real treat to hear tracks from the Residents long and diverse career presented with such fidelity, pun intended!Each track is certainly more than a sum of its constituent components. To these ears, the album highlight, among many, is the slowed and funk-tinged “Smelly Tongues,” going back to Meet the Residents. In the middle 1980s, Randy would growl and choke his way through it, and he doesn’t disappoint here, but the beautifully nuanced guitar and trumpet lines, complemented by more crush from the tightly wound rhythm section, take everything to that proverbial next level. Distortion, while present, is never overdone at the expense of clarity. This is an excellently conceived and well-deserved homage from a band obviously conversant in Residents lore and syntax. While this is my introduction to Uz Jsme Doma’s musicianship, all evidence points to a band well worth exploring.