We're Late For Class: #39 Opium Den Express

#39 Opium Den Express

When every minute equals an hour... you're on the Opium Den Express. It runs parallel to the old Ho Chi Minh trail, through Laos, for about 22-1/2 hours. Say nothing, steer clear of the chickens and nestle into one of the back births for the chill experience. The vibrating track pulses with the rhythmic monotony of a non-stop train (a 'heroin gate'), offering hallucinations and plenty of time & space to develop your own plot lines. Think of it as a Spaghetti Eastern. For Broadway, it'll require an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery to fill seats. For now, a few bong hits will do. Recorded live.

Listen

Opium Den Express (22:21)

Free 320
LOSSLESS

21 comments:

Anonymous4:12 PM
thanks, looking forward to it - steve.
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Anonymous7:28 PM
smokin'!

qef
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Dr. Schluss10:11 PM
I'd love to give it a listen (great artwork!), but sharebee does nothing except freeze up my computer. Any chance you could try another download venue?
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We're Late For Class10:48 PM
Sure Doc,
Here's the direct RapidShare link.
http://rapidshare.com/files/214477277/WLFC39_Opium_Den_Express.zip.html
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Jeff10:06 PM
People,
1 No problem with sharebee.
2 As usual, loved it but a little to upbeat for an opium den but I could just picture the band in "From Dawn Till Dusk" playing this.

Great stuff

Jeff
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Dr. Schluss10:15 PM
Thanks for the direct link! It looks like Sharebee has identified their problem, so hopefully it will stop crashing computers.
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We're Late For Class9:25 PM
First time we've been compared to Tito & Tarantula. We can't hear it, but we'll take it because we usually get compared to the garbage disposal or the grinding of the back bumper of the van when it scrapes the curb in the driveway. Thanks.
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Anonymous6:55 PM
just got to it late - great stuff and i adore the early 70's private pressing artwork!
scav
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RevRev4:56 PM
And I'm kate for this one. Perfect timing in a way as I suck down morphine these days for a depressingly painful problem...
Now I'll try your opium...
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revrev4:59 PM
I'm Kate for this one? is this 1920's slang like "It's jake with me?" or simply a morphine induced laxness on the old qwerty
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revrev1:04 PM
Hey, folks...
I LOVE this one!
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Snoose Junction9:33 PM
Good on y'all for the sounds...

here's the latest / earliest SNOOSE offering, a genuine classic called SNOOSE IN THE JEWELBOX

good luck and keep it up!!
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Maurizio Ercole3:32 AM
Wonderful sound! I have add your link in my last post.
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Dr. Schluss10:26 PM
I put up a mini-review for this over at the Psychedelic Garage. Have a look. Hope to hear some new sounds from you soon.
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We're Late For Class4:06 AM
Thanks a million Doc. We've got some stuff on the way.
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NØ10:16 PM
Just read your comment over at Digital Meltd0wn, came over here & started listening to this treat. Thanks for kickin' the dragon with us. Just opioid sweetness. I comment soon over at DM & also try to put up some of your stuff on my own blog this weekend. Thanks again.
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We're Late For Class11:32 AM
Yo No,
Many thanks for the comment and the kind words and the product placement over at Nothin' Sez Somethin'. Can't thank you enough for the initiative. We're still signing away some of the rights to future first born, so let us know.
WLFC
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Anonymous12:08 PM
MAN, this is good stuff!
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We're Late For Class12:43 PM
Maurizio,
Thanks for the mention. Sorry it took so long to respond. We're having mail problems. For some reason Blogger stop sending our comment mail to us. Or Hotmail stopped accepting it. We're working on it. Anyway... thanks for the plug.
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NØ9:28 PM
Your future first born...hmmmm.
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mick552:41 AM
Planet WLFC arrives from Deep Space like a doped up
Peter Gunn in Technicolor.

Awesome slab of monolithic grooves and Dik Mik style
blips, bleeps, and gurgles.
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PRESS THANKS...

Thanks to the late, great Fred Dellar at MOJO Magazine for mentioning Art Jackson's Atrocity AND We're Late For Class in two separate "Ask Fred" columns, where he called the Atrocity's Gout a "fine, percussion-fuelled, invigorating free-for-all," and also saying, "we at Ask Fred are glad WLFC exist." Thanks Fred!

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Many thanks to Jeff Fitzgerald over at Psychedelic Waves for including Art Jackson's Atrocity in his list of Top 30 Albums of 2019, calling Tribute To Sun Ra... "Some great, exploratory, tripped out Sun Ra inspired free jazz," and "a terrific album." Needless to say, we're shocked. Since we never sent the guy a dime. Thanks Jeff.

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Thanks to Roz Milner for the two interview/articles posted at Bearded Gentlemen Music, "Solving the Mystery of Art Jackson Atrocity’s Gout," and the most recent, "With His Back To The Crowd: Art Jackson’s Atrocity’s Live In Europe - Lost Live Jazz Recording."

We collectively appreciate the creative interest and the well-groomed ink.

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Thanks to It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine for the article, "Maybe It’s Time To Take Art Jackson’s Atrocity Seriously." Maybe.

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AN ACTUAL RECORD REVIEW...

ART JACKSON'S ATROCITY

Gout

(Unreleased 1974 Promo On Columbia Records)

Reviewed by Joe Kenney @

Julian Cope Presents Head Heritage

If, like me, your favorite era of Miles Davis is his electric era, specifically the 1973-1975 years in which Pete Cosey was his guitarist, then you’ve probably wondered why that super-fantastic lineup of his never cut an album together, after Miles decided to retire in late 1975. I mean, they were the greatest group in history, with Pete Cosey’s phenomenal, psychedelic guitar (the man was beyond Hendrix, that’s all there is to it), Reggie Lucas’ wah-wah’d grounding rhythm guitar, Michael Henderson’s dub-like basslines…hell, I can’t go through all of them, but if you know them, you love them. But if you’ve ever wondered what an album by this super group sans Miles would sound like, well my friends, I give you Gout, by Art Jackson’s Atrocity.

Only thing is, you’ll have to hunt the blogs for it. Recorded in 1974, the album was cut as a promo by Columbia, who then went on to drop both the group and the album, which is unreleased to this day. “The horror…the horror…” No one’s sure why (info is slim to none on this group and album), but most rumors have to do with Art Jackson’s drug abuse. In any case, the album has perfect sound quality – the only source is the promo LP, of course, and it sounds phenomenal.

The Miles connection surfaces again: Art Jackson was a twenty year-old guitarist whom Miles Davis himself recommended to Columbia records. Apparently Davis even funded the recording of the album. The Atrocity was put together around Jackson, an 11-member collective of hard-rockin’, psychedelia-lovin’, jazz-playin’ motherfuckers (two saxophonists, four drummers, two keyboardists, a guy on reeds, a guy on bass, a guy on “effects”), none of whom I’ve ever heard of (much like Art Jackson himself).

The five long tracks on Gout center around Jackson’s guitar, and the kid is Pete Cosey reborn; the stuff on here sounds almost identical to what Cosey was performing on the Agharta and Pangaea albums. That same sort of fucked-up, psychedelic distortion which goes from raging and chaotic one moment to spaced-out drones the next, the strange tunings, the works. Only thing is, unlike Cosey, Jackson’s not above playing a power chord or three, so the album packs a definite metal-rock punch. I mean, it’s fantastic, the whole thing.

The superbly-named “Shaft In Afghanistan” opens the album. Jackson’s guitar is on super-fucked mode, sounding like a cyclic tone. The rhythm section lays down a menacing, throbbing track, which Jackson and the sax & reeds proceed to riff over. Jackson soon leaves the actual “song” to the others, instead riffing and roaring with all manner of guitar sounds across the track. He’s everywhere, from wah-wah to thick distortion to cosmic fuzz. Things cool down three minutes in, but it’s only a fake-out; the track comes right back in. Jackson funks it up on wah-wah, with studio-tricked handclaps providing additional percussion. There's all sorts of electronic gimmickry on the album; this isn’t just some quickly recorded demo. This eventually calms down again into a sort of funky ambience – but it’s just another fake-out! The track rips right back up, the drums so superbly recorded (and no doubt closely-miked) that they seem to pound within the caverns of your skull.

“Arabian Fabian” (another great title!) comes in with total menace, until a faux-lite jazz tune pops up. Funky, proto-drum’n’bass drum kit and sax. But this soon becomes something altogether un-lite. Echoed murk creeps across the track, eerie wails, treated reeds, and dubbed-out sax bleats. Those close-up drums kick in and we’re in an altogether heavier, funkier groove. The first half of the track belongs to the Atrocity, with Jackson throwing in brief fills and licks on his mutated guitar. Things collapse into psychedelic ambience at the five-minute mark; free jazz with plinking guitar and tapped cymbal. But ominous guitar fuzz hovers in the distance, a starving wolf preparing to attack. John Carpenter keyboards arise and give the track even more of a horror-movie feel. But it’s a ruse; the piano takes over, playing a melancholy melody as the other instruments recede into the murk. This doesn’t last. Those ultra-loud drums kick the shit out of you again, jumping out of nowhere, and suddenly we’re into the strangest of strange: ambient free jazz with heavy metal drums. The track eventually wears itself out, descending back into the murk from whence it came.

“Available Bush” sounds like some early ‘90s industrial mash, with in-your-face drums and ripping and roaring Ministry-esque guitar. The track throbs on an off-kilter funk grove, Jackson heading the proceedings with the twists and turns of his guitar. The sax plays a faux-Middle Eastern counter-melody to his blasts and blares. The bassist throws in a few snake-like fills of his own, but his instrument sounds anemic compared to Jackson’s acidic distortion. This one humps along for seven minutes which quickly pass by, never establishing anything beyond that off-kilter groove, but never suffering for it.

“Tomato Reign” is the epic of the album, 16+ minutes of cosmic echo and free jazz. It crawls out of the murk in the opening moments, ethereal and disjointed fills from the assembled players. Things continue in this dubbed-out vein for a few minutes; nothing on the level of the Taj Mahal Travelers, but close…along the lines of the last half of Miles’ 1975 shows, when Cosey et al would let it all hang out in improvisatory bouts of experimental noise and abstraction. Pounding, tribal drums which pop out and then disappear. Bleated sax fills which float across the sound spectrum. Even animalistic grunts, growls, and screams from the group. This culminates in ultra-fucked guitar from Jackson, sounding again like some cyclic tone from hell, and then someone (a group member? a sample from some obscure film?) states in the calmest tones, “Fuck her. Let her rot.” A few more minutes of banging, echoed drums and bleating, mournful fills from the sax, and that’s it: the freest noise-skronk ever comes to a close.

“Let’s go!,” someone yells, and we’re straight into the pounding, pissed-off proto-metal of the title track, “Gout.” This is the rock version of the preceding track, another rhythmless excursion into all things free, only packing a wallop in the guitar distortion and overall menace. It pounds and snarls for six minutes, never finding a groove, preferring to live in its own sonic hellhole of chaotic din. Finally it builds to a climax of sorts, with a few final bashes on the drum kit, and the record’s over.

To be fair, you can see why Columbia refused to release this. Gout is the type of album you’d only find on some free jazz label or, if it was recorded today, some ultra-hip indie label. But Columbia in the mid-1970s? Releasing this groundless swell of jazz-metal ambience? Hard to believe. But those master tapes are out there, somewhere, as is the full story of what exactly happened to Art Jackson and his Atrocity. In the meantime, we can only listen to their one recorded album, and wonder.