The Conformists – Midwestless

Computer Students

The Conformists have been toiling away in the St Louis hinterlands for nearly thirty years, crafting their awkward, distended “ugly rock music” and stretching it into new shapes, imbuing them with fresh perspectives and leading us away from leaden cruelty to a hypnotic, distorted romanticism that drags new blood and new earth from the cycle of days and seasons.

Those arbiters of unusual time signatures Computer Students have chosen to put out the group’s fifth offering and considering they have issued or re-issued albums by the likes of Lynx, Oxes, Big’n and Cheval De Frise, The Conformists find themselves in very good company.

With six tracks scuttling in at less than half an hour, the group’s blubbery, blunt bluster on Midwestless is egged on by grinding bass, and blistering drums wriggles and shakes like a hyperactive child shrugging off the embrace of an unwelcome grandparent and throwing off their clothes, hopping and skipping to run in ever decreasing circles around the dirt yard. It jerks awkwardly but there are no sharp corners apart from the strangled, frustrated vocals that emerge part way through “Song For Rincon Pio Sound”.

You can sense an element of small town frustration and it feels as if the ways out are all blocked; instead they have turned inward, grinding away in a poorly lit basement, constructing awkward inner visions that never settle with the guitar often plotting a careful yet scattered course through the rhythmic minefield. There is a bit more progress on “Wrong Off”, with an angry surge of biting guitar clattering against a ceaseless rhythm. The guitar becomes more plangent after a while and the drums emerge, muffled like cardboard boxes. The tight circles are a joy and the cupboard-bound vocals only add to the sense of claustrophobia.

There is a creeping threat in “Mr Biron”, particularly in the Tom Waits-ian vocalising, with the discordant guitar circling hungrily as the drums deconstruct the beat, trying to push it into unwelcoming territory. The bass plumbs the depths like knotted roots which the others have to watch out for in order to prevent the whole thing stepping off the high wire. It is an abstruse and at times maddening experience which doesn’t prepare you for the long-form romance of “Five-Year Napsence”.

With the comforting lyrics “Holding hands so we’re not alone”, the group still can’t agree on the direction; so a three-way tug starts off and who knows in what time signature it is being played. What we do know is that out of these unexpected trajectories come some neat concision, the concentric circles dizzying in their accuracy, comforting in their familiarity yet unnerving in their duration.

Once they have finally found a consensus, The Conformists mine it for all its worth to the delight of the listener and, apart from the subtle shifts in tone, it whirls away, forcing them to sit down in case they lose their balance. Over too soon, even if it is twelve minutes long, the only thing to do is press play and discover what you missed first time around.

Computer Students are doing a great job here. They may not have an enormous catalogue, but every hand-picked release is essential and they look glorious on vinyl. Go on, treat yourselves before they have all gone.

-Mr Olivetti-