Shellac - Dude Incredible

Shellac

Dude Incredible

16 September 2014

Touch & Go

 

4 stars out of 5

 

 

For those of you who only know Steve Albini as the guy who produced Surfer Rosa, In Utero, Rid of Me, and Mclusky Do Dallas, plus countless other essential albums of the last two and a half decades, here’s the new Shellac album, Dude Incredible, on which Albini himself sings and plays guitar. According to the label, “There is no comma in ‘Dude Incredible,’ like Sir Duke or King Friday, for example.” Armed with this very helpful information, you’re now prepared to enter the sparse yet complex world of Shellac. Also know this: “Shit is coming down, and I’m riding bikes!” (from track four, the aptly titled “Riding Bikes”); and this: “Fuck the king!” (from “All the Surveyors”).

 

So what’s up with Dude Incredible? Once in a blue moon, when by some freak of scheduling he has no paid work, Albini gets a spare day to record his own stuff at his studio, and so he does. So, unlike most of his recording projects, where a band comes in and lays down in a relatively short few weeks, or even days, his own band’s records are put together from random sessions over the course of a few years. And yet, Dude Incredible sounds remarkably consistent and united. It’s got some post-rockety things happening in the rhythms, some of the typical Albini humour (“The People’s Microphone,” for example, contains no vocals), and absolutely zero bells and whistles. Remember the bone-dry sound of The Breeders’ Pod? That exact sound is here. Remember the mangled, bleeding rawness of The Jesus Lizard’s Goat? That same rawness is here. Obviously, Albini produced them both.

 

But enough excitement about what the man has done for other bands. Dude Incredible is a solid piece of work, full of interesting experiments and a common theme (!) revolving around surveyors, mappers, and the parceling out of the land stolen from the First Nations. It rocks and it has brains. It’s both unpretentious and intellectual. It’s the cool, sensible guy at the party who doesn’t even have to bother with insulting the music you’re playing—his coolness is contagious, and just the simple act of shaking his hand is enough for you to be infected with an awareness that everything you were listening to before was shit.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger