UPDATE: It looks like the Fantomas live DVD will now be released on September 6th.
Judging by the title it will be from Fantomas show at The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on 31st December, 2008, where they played The Director's Cut in its entirety, along with Simply Beautiful and Chariot Choogle. Disappointingly, I don't think Dave Lombardo played this show (as he wasn't on the tour which followed) but Dale Crover does a great job filling in.
Soon after they played the Big Day Out festival's in New Zealand and Australia. Here's some footage from that tour:
I’ll keep this short and possibly sweet, although I don’t think Zorn does sweet.
The first half of this album is relatively laid back, especially by Zorn standards. I haven’t heard much since his Naked City days which obliterated my ears.
(Note: This song isn't from Nova Express but is fuckin' amazing)
Here, the avant-garde maestro lulls the listener into a false sense of relaxation before disintegrating the mind, melting the brain, but not quite destroying all sense of assonance.
Due to his role in Faith No More and his massive array of other projects since, and also because he's a complete genius, Mike Patton is the most well known member of Mr. Bungle. While he played a large part in making Faith No More and Tomahawk what they are/were, they were never solely his responsibility. Fantômas is his baby, his creation, his warped point of view.
(Ipecac Recordings, 2005)
Fantômas have released four studio albums to date; their self-titled debut was (and still is) unlike anything I’ve heard; experimental to say the least, with Mike Patton using his voice to frighteningly great effect. Next came an album of horror movie songs, The Director’s Cut, which was surprisingly accessible. The masterpiece in Patton’s entire library would have to be Delìrium Còrdia, a 74 minute mind-fuck where the listener overlooks a surgical procedure. However, for me, Suspended Animation best sums up Fantômas – playfully evil.
The album retains Fantômas dark and twisted way of looking at things. Patton is once again screaming, squealing, and making any other sound effect he finds appropriate; his support cast of Buzz Osborne (Melvins, guitar), Dave Lombardo (Slayer, drums), Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, bass) as precise as ever. The difference comes with the abundance of samples, but they’re not just any samples; they’re all linked to children. Cartoons, toys, and kids laughing and playing; not exactly what you associate with music of this variety.
Each track represents a day in April, and by 04/10/05 Saturday there’s an overload of samples and a myriad of "uh oh’s", "bye bye’s", and "boing’s" thrown in. 04/24/05 Sunday is a prelude to the work Patton did on the Crank 2: High Voltage soundtrack and 04/14/05 Thursday somehow stands out above the rest, its production simply superb.
The end result is total meltdown of your senses best listened to on headphones; disturbing yet cheeky, sinister yet merry. It’s pure Patton; you’re unable to tell if he’s just plain evil or if he’s got tongue firmly planted in cheek and is just fucking with your head.
Next up from the Mr. Bungle clan is bassist Trevor Dunn. Although Dunn is probably most well known in his post-Bungle days for his role in Fantomas, he has become pretty much a hired hand performing with everyone from Sean Lennon to the Melvins to former Korn member Brian "Head" Welch (an album which Dunn says, despite being on it, he has never heard). His latest project is rock group MadLove.
(Ipecac Recordings, 2009)
Punchy and bass/guitar-centric, MadLove combines driving bass with classical instruments less associated with rock to produce heavy melodramatic arrangements.
White With Foam is all Dunn’s work, and his attempt at writing rock music. While the album is much more standard in terms of song structure to other projects Dunn has been involved in, there’s a bit too much variation and subtle nuances for it to become all that popular. This is a good thing because the subtle use of more traditional instruments is what sets Dunn apart from his more popular counterparts.
Korean songstress Sunny Kim handles most of the vocals; her distinctive vocals, at times, have a very vulnerable feel to them. The combination of Kim’s vocals and the use of vibraphone, harp, cello, violin, and viola produce a classical effect and another reason why it is unlikely to hit the “mainstream”.
Kim sounds more assure of herself on Absence & Noise, the strong vocals and heavy bass giving it real guts. A few songs do lack guts but for the most part Dunn’s focus on bass and Icelandic guitarist, Hilmar Jensson’s power chords keep this firmly somewhere in the rock category. Simple, punchy riffs give songs like As Sad as it Was Beautiful a foot-stomping like quality.
Dirty is very… well, dirty - gritty may be a better word; the bass being very prominent, even more so than the rest of the album. Left With Nothing sees Dunn take a turn on vocals and, in my opinion, it’s probably the standout track on the album. His vocals are a little more soothing and give a somewhat trippy effect; certainly an entirely different mood is conveyed. It would be interesting to hear the whole album sung with a different vocalist.
