The Melvins - Chicken Switch Review
Posted by Jesse Coy on 10.18.2009
A variety of artists remix not individual songs, but entire albums by the Melvins. Is it as crazy a noise fest as it sounds to be?
the Melvins Chicken Switch
Ipecac Recordings
September 2009
1. Washmachine Sk8tronics (Remix by Eye Yamatsuka) 5:10
2. Emperor Twaddle Remix (Remix by Christoph Heemann) 4:21
3. She Chokes Her Dying Breath & Does It In My Face (Remix by V/VM) 4:25
4. AAHHH… (Remix by John Duncan) 5:03
5. Linkshänder (Remix by Matmos) 5:13
6. EggNog Trilogy: (She's Ivanhoe; Cancer; Inebriated) (Remix by L. Ronaldo) 4:25
7. SNOW REM REM IBVZ (Remix by Merzbow) 5:56
8. Prick Concrete/Revolution M (Remix by David Scott Stone) 3:23
9. Queen (Remix by Panacea) 4:41
10. The Silky Apple Butter Of Youth (Remix by Sunroof!) 3:13
11. 4th Floor Hellcopter (Remix by Kawabata Makoto) 5:06
12. disp_tx_skel_mach_murx (Remix by Farmersmanual) 5:06
13. Overgoat (Remix by Void Manes) 4:36
14. Over From Under The Dog, Girl & Boy Treatment (Remix by RLW) 4:04
15. Hard Revenge Milly Bloody Battle VS. The Melvins Ozmatized Gore Police
(Remix by Speedranch) 5:15
Not a single one of those song listings contain a typo despite what you might think. This one belongs in the record book somewhere for having some of the strangest song names, to say nothing for the actual songs themselves. Before I get into the album, though, I will also point out that the Melvins are a band who for some time have been on my “to get” list. They rank up their with Nomeansno and D.O.A., in part because all three bands have done collaboration albums with Jello Biafra over the years (the Melvins’ albums with Jello being Never Breathe What You Can’t See and Sieg Howdy). Besides that, Buzz Osbourne of the Melvins also serves as guitarist for Fantomas, Mike Patton’s avant-garde and often uber-strange metal band. The Melvins themselves have been on Mike Patton’s Ipecac Recordings label ever since that label began back in 1999.
So I’d always wanted to get a Melvins album. With over thirty albums to their name, counting studio and live releases, plus various collections, it shouldn’t be hard, right? So this particular album is where I started. I will concede that it might not be the best place to begin with the Melvins. The conceptual idea is interesting enough. A variety of musicians have to make a remix, assembling the remix song not from a single track but from an entire album. The end result, though, is a fair amount of experimental noise and discordant sonic landscapes. It shouldn’t be too surprising coming from Ipecac Recordings, who have issued some very experimental releases, such as a few of Fantomas’ releases.
I have a couple albums or longer songs that go this sort of route (though none quite in this form), from Pigface to Godflesh, the Butthole Surfers, and even Sonic Youth, who are actually represented on this one by SY band member, Lee Ranaldo, who provides the remix for “Eggnog Trilogy.” That one tends to be one of the tamer mixes, or one far more recognizable as a song, slices of portions from that 1991 EP glued together. It’s also one of the few tracks where you hear Buzz’s vocals. As for some of the other tracks, they sound less like songs and more like noise and patchwork. It’s not an easy album to digest, be that good, bad, or otherwise. And I can’t help but sometimes get the same sort of feeling when I see some modern art, and think to myself… I can do something like that.
The only other name I’m familiar with on this one is Eye Yamatsuka, who provides the opening track, “Washmachine Sk8tronics.” I don’t know him from his band, the Boredoms, but rather from his vocal work for John Zorn’s Naked City (another clue as to how this remix album by the Melvins might pan out, as in very, very weird). You have a chugging riff that soon deteriorates in such a way that it sounds like the machine it’s being played on is coming apart. John Duncan’s remix, “AAHHH,” is actually very Pigface-ish, with heavy industrial drumming, breaking away into an electronic throbbing and weird whispering toward the end. It’s followed by “Linksander,” which sounds like it could come from an early 80’s sci-fi spy flick. “Queen” by Panacea sounds like it has samples from a number of tracks put to a techno sort of beat. It’s interesting.
“She Chokes Her Dying Breath and Does It In My Face” is one of the less pleasant, mostly distortion tracks. I can’t gleam much merit from it. The same goes for “SNOW REM REM IBVZ,” which just sounds like none too interesting feedback and fuzz, similar to “4th Floor Hellcopter.” “Prick Concrete/Revolution M” is just a prolonged vocal strain (monk-ish) with interlaced garble. As for a song that sounds like what it looks like, there’s “disp_tx_skel_mach_murx” just a collection of blips and blurps and gizzits and taps. “Hard Revenge Milly Bloody Battle VS. The Melvins Ozmatized Gore Police” closes things out, and it sounds like whatever you’re playing this on is… well, dying. You get the idea.
Now, I’ve heard the slight rumor that this is a release in part in jest, or the band having fun with their fans. There was also a fake leaked remix that went out and duped a lot of folks. It ended simply enough with Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love.”
My verdict? Well, just because it’s not easy to listen to doesn’t mean it’s devoid of merit. Yet the opposite can also be said. Just because it’s not easy to listen to doesn’t mean it merits acclaim. It is what it is, I suppose. Longtime fans of the band can and will likely appreciate it more than someone relatively new to the band. With a little patience, there are some hidden, interesting things going on. But I don’t foresee this one as an album I’ll listen to too many more times.
The 411: Chicken Switch, several years in the making, is far from an average album. If I were a specialist on noise releases, I might be able to judge it a little better. Yet in comparison to the few noise and experimental sound releases in my collection, this one is on par with them, and thus my average ranking.
