The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (TSORPM) is one of the most interesting
projects around at the moment, as it’s one of the most consistent in its
attempts to look beyond the boundaries of free jazz and connect its music to
New York’s No Wave scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s (feel free to
compare their music to bands like Mars or DNA) or noisecore acts like Anal
Cunt or the Boredoms. The project was founded by British turntablist Mariam
Rezaei, who is always looking for exciting new ways to use her instrument and
who has become one of the most original musicians in improvised music. The
ensemble also includes Italian trumpeter Gabriele Mitelli – part of the
trumpet duo Star Splitter with Rob Mazurek, Austrian rhythm machine Lukas
König from Mopcut and Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen. The latter is
currently probably the most daring and exciting musician in the free jazz
scene, as TSORPM is really just continuing what she started with
ØKSE
last year. There it was conscious hip hop, here it’s alternative art rock with
which she is expanding her style.
TSORPM’s music combines energetic brass sounds and dense textures, driven by
stormy, mostly electronic beats. It’s radical, however especially the horn
section knows how to shift down a gear despite all its power. They also know
how to open up space for Rezaei’s kaleidoscopic electronic layers, which are
often reminiscent of Sun Ra. Rezaei unleashes heavily distorted samples that
oscillate between computer game sounds and pure noise. But instead of wildly
fragmenting everything, her playing fulfills several functions: She amplifies
and directs the rhythmic flow and acts like a pianist, providing the
structural framework for the project. In doing so, she manages not only to use
the sampled material in a brutal way, but also to add subtle pointillistic
touches.
The most powerful tracks are “In the silence of trouble, we find each other on
common ground“ and “I said no“. The former impresses with its rockist
approach, sluggish heavy metal beats, forward momentum, and the raw power of
the drums, over which Rasmussen and Mitelli lay down their wild free jazz
lines as if Peter Brötzmann and Toshinori Kondo were jamming with Napalm
Death. “I said no” is an industrial monster that could also be played in a
dark wave club. The beats are missing, a mega-sombre background noise
dominates and the heaviness of the sound is hard to bear, but the delicate
synthesizer lines, which can hardly assert themselves, symbolize a little
hope.
Finally, one must not ignore the title of the project. It’s taken from an
etching by Francisco Goya entitled
“El sueño de la razón produce monstruos.”
When Goya used this title, he probably meant that during his own sleep or
dreams, when his rational mind was switched off, he was plagued by monsters –
hallucinations, terrors, nightmares. However, his rational mind when awake was
able to prevent these things from coming to the surface. Nowadays, however, a
different interpretation has gained acceptance – one that is more general and
more critical of society. When a society itself ceases to act rationally,
especially when it elects its leaders on the basis of populism and emotions,
monstrous things will happen. The rationalism of a modern society normally
keeps the human monsters among us in check, but when this characteristic of
being guided by thought and intellect disappears from society, not only do
such human monsters emerge, but the entire society becomes corrupted and falls
into irrationality, fear, anger, and hatred. It would be mischievous not to
think of current trends in Western democracies.
So who are the monsters we create in our sleep? TSORPM reflects on this
question with the help of sound and spontaneity, with harshness and dissonance
– as one should in today’s world. They try electroconvulsive therapy, nine
shocks in nine tracks, in the hope of reviving our dying consciousness.
The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters is available as a CD and as a download.
You can listen to it here: