The title and track names for Exoterm‘s first album read like stage directions or parts of a screenplay, and the atmospheres that they produce over the course of the six tracks on Exits Into A Corridor are dark and foreboding but suffused with a giddy mania.
The pieces are all written by bassist Rune Nergaard, but are fleshed out in dramatic form by the guitar of Nels Cline, the saxes of Kristoffer Berre Alberts, and the electronics and lithe drumming of serial collaborator Jim Black. In fact, they are all collaborators in their own way, and it is this sense of adventure and willingness to push themselves that comes across in the recording of the album. They managed to knock it all together in the space of two days, but you would never tell from the production. It sounds loose but well crafted, all the players’ love of improv coming across perfectly, but not descending into idle noise.
Although Nergaard wrote the pieces, this is very much about the interactions of the four players and the relationships between instruments. Opener “First Light” has a lilting, floating intro, the smooth sax playing a dejected line that sounds listless and tired. The guitar and drums overwhelm this gentle section in a bid to wrestle control, the drums kind of uneven, the guitars wailing and shrieking like night spectres being put to the sword by the arrival of daylight. The sax is the antithesis here, as if casting nightmares in to the cold light of day. The mood changes though on “Forest Mist – Night” and it is the sax that takes on the role of oppressor. It sounds as though it has awoken wounded, and the clattering drums and subterranean bass create a hypnotic backdrop for the sax to freak out. Even Nels’s guitar can’t calm the fever, and all they can do is stand back and watch aghast until the fever breaks. Some of the noises are a complete mystery and it is as if we are moving down an unknown corridor, opening doors into random rooms, uncovering wild scenes and then shutting them and moving on to the next.The band can summon some real momentum when they choose to and the drums really push “…Back Towards The Car – Night” in to a kind of post-punk rhythm with the sax adding to that sense of energy. The drums are taught and metallic, and everything else is simple and just about the repetition and the energy. It is a streamlined vehicle that allows the unwieldy sax to bluster and blurt all over the place, until they eventually abandon it as it descends into a hesitant calm. The dreamy interlude of “Moves Away From The Door” doesn’t quite prepare the listener for the punk attack of “Two More Times”, the clashing guitar biting and messy. This is the heaviest and slowest of the rhythms so far, moving earth and then erupting from the spoil, the guitars destroyed and the sax disintegrating in a crazy duet that is egged on by the drums to ever wilder endeavours, all against a backdrop of white noise and howling mayhem.
I can’t believe this only took two days to record, because the interactions between the four players are so skilful. They are able to assist one another, but also to drive one another on to ever wilder antics. The drums on the final track propel the quartet into uneven territory with an absolute maelstrom swirling in the background as the guitar and sax compete, neither willing to relinquish what they see as the upper hand. It sounds like a well choreographed car-crash, ebbing and flowing but flowing back with more force each time. Thankfully, this intensity can’t be maintained and like the fiercest of storms, the group finally blows it way into silence and a sense of relief.As a one-off meeting of minds, Exits Into A Corridor is an extraordinarily powerful and kinetic series of tracks that is almost overwhelming. You can imagine them coming together for one extreme weekend and then going their separate ways, the universe forever changed by their unique meeting just as the listener’s world has been.
-Mr Olivetti-
