Hair Police - 'Prescribed Burning' (Hospital Productions)

The cover of this is stark and minimal, and the inside of the rough cardboard is screened with a pattern that makes it almost the inverse of Obedience Cuts. On the first half, Hair Police is far away from the active machinations of Obedience - it's rather 'mellow', though that's probably not the correct word to use when describing music this dark and desolate. Prescribed Burning could work as a horror film soundtrack, except it's tonality is so low-key and it's accents come from processed, reverb-laden sounds of indeterminate origin (really, it's not even clear what is electronic here and what comes from acoustic or human sources) that I would imagine it would make any such film a distraction. And there's not necessarily a horror lurking here, just unease and confusion. The two lengthy pieces that start side 1 (untitled, as are all of them here) are spacious, with clanking sounds and drones ebbing and flowing. The third, a short track to lead into side two's more aggressive start, feels like something incidental that was scrapped from other material. If you listen closely, especially on the second track, you'll hear some backwards-processed sounds, suggesting this was more of a studio work than it may sound like upon first listen. Side two then explodes, at least relatively, with churning, grinding distorted sounds, beacons of higher pitched feedback, and the feeling of forces pulling themselves apart. It's closer to the 'Hair Police' sound, though it doesn't feel like the deconstructed "band" they do when appearing live, and it's not completely clear if all three members are actively involved in this. But kudos to Hair Police for not painting themselves into a corner, especially during this time, the peak of their self-described 'gnarly times'. Yeah, that infamous t-shirt they made became their unofficial slogan, written across the two sides here in the run-out grooves, and perfectly encapsulating the Bush/Cheney/Iraq/post-9-11 years in America better than any other two words could. I said before how the decline in output from this American noise underground was more likely an incorrect perception I hold based on my own waning interest/involvement, but I also tie it to the political changes in America - not that Obama's election in 2008 ushered in a progressive era, not by any means - but certainly the mindset changed in some way. And before y'all comment on how ridiculous this is, I'm not saying that noise music changed because of Obama, but that the music created during the Bush years reflected feelings of frustration, anger and hopelessness (at least to me) while never quite embracing nihilism or self-destruction, and one can connect this to a general cultural zeitgeist in a way that enhances the interpretation of such music via context, etc. None of which is really relevant to describing side two of Prescribed Burning, which apart from the first cut stays in the sparse groove of side one - not necessarily gentle, but spacious, with start-stop rhythm, the momentum being a lurching crawl. Not many distinct vocals are audible here - by this point it seems like Mike Connelly was using his voice purely as instrument so it's going to be processed beyond recognition (though some deeper, guttural growls are evident). I still hold onto this connection to free jazz - that Hair Police are in some strange way a jazz group - and think this would be like Marion Brown's Afternoon of a Georgia Faun side one if it were transposed to this time and place.