Don Caballero II
Don Caballero
Touch &
Go, 1995
Reviewed by
Piero Scaruffi
Don Caballero II is truly a landmark in the history of instrumental
rock, an hour-plus work (issued on double vinyl in Europe) issued two years after the
Pittsburgh band's brave debut, For Respect. Guitarists Mike Banfield and Ian
Williams play at maximum levels of strength and creativity, and the acrobatic drumming of
Damon Che is frequently highlight-reel material. Matt Jencik, replacing Pat Morris on
bass, stands behind the trio with honor.
The sound is ever more analytic, despite such chaotic surroundings. The various aspects of
the music are meditative, like an orchestra made of seasoned instrumentalists. The
psychedelic edge so prominent on For Respect has not dissolved, but here it's
more a part of a radiant harmonic imagination. The avant-garde extremes of "please
tokio, please THIS IS TOKIO" are never pedantic or fanciful, rather they are melodic
figures caressed in a trance, pauses, breaks and time changes, reckless fugues and
carefully spread out dissonance. Everything peacefully co-exists, with an end to all of
the excess somewhere in sight, between the screechings of what sounds like an electric saw
at maximum volume, and one colossal distortion that is extended for eternity.
Better still is "Repeat Defender," a party for thin ears that lashes from an
exhausted beginning to an interval of supersonic hisses articulated in the most urgent
fashion. In the fierce roars that shake "Dick Suffers If Furious With You," to
the insinuated counterpoints that cradle "No One Gives A Hoot About FAUX-ASS
Nonsense," one hears the echo of Soft Machine and The Nice, absorbed in the brutal
noise of our times. There's a lot of erudition in this atonal funk, blues and jazz blend.
And it's curious that it surfaces most in brief passages of "Stupid Puma" and
"P,P,P, antless," where the searing guitar heat and the body-rocking vibrations
tip-toe toward Joe Satriani or Eric Johnson territory. Less clear is the pure abstraction
of the reverberating and out of focus chords in "Cold Knees (In April)."
Don Caballero II is more ambitious, sophisticated and incendiary than For
Respect, even if some semblance of that album's menacing outlook is lost. The band
has coined a form of rock music that has not lost its original lucid appeal, but has
buried it under layers and layers of sophisticated playing, in a process that resembles
what happened to jazz during its transition from big-band swing music, to bebop and then
free jazz. This record's historical importance cannot be overlooked.
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