Reissue of the Week: Disclose
DISCLOSE — “Yesterday’s Fairytale, Tomorrow’s Nightmare” LPThis is a monumental record, even without considering its place as the final DISCLOSE LP released before Kawakami’s passing in 2007. His death casts an enduring pall, particularly evident here in the new liner notes from Stuart Schrader. While Schrader primarily writes about the ill-fated DISCLOSE / FRAMTID tour, it is a far more insightful, nuanced and touching read than that might seem. Neither romantic nor cynical, the tone is simply reflective and personal: here are his perceptions of Kawakami’s experience in the US, not a verdict but a single opinion. The epilogue of the story, over a decade later, remains ambivalent. Kawakami, despite his legacy, was still a human being irreducible to the mythos that lives on after him. The continued care and commitment shown by those that knew him and called him “friend” are a welcome palliative, showing a more grounded context to the DISCLOSE legend. In that respect, the royalties from this reissue are going to Kawakami’s mother. Of course, for the vast majority of listeners, as Schrader is mindful to point out, the context is far less immediately relevant than the record itself. For those who ignore or simplify DISCLOSE as just some DISCHARGE-worship: you are missing the forest for the trees because these trees look like some other damn trees you saw in a different fucking forest. It’s just not that simple, and especially not with this record. Schrader’s track-by-track notes are much more compelling and attentive than anything I can comparably muster, so I won’t attempt too much here. Yesterday’s Fairytale is the pinnacle of “Disbones”-era DISCLOSE: fuzzed-out D-beat with increasingly more metallic influence in the guitar riffs. Without forsaking any of the raw energy, this style set loose the true hypnotic potential of the unrelenting beat that found its logical conclusion in the closing track “Wardead,” a nearly ten-minute opus of swirling chaos and perpetual solos; a psychedelic disengagement with time, a sonic inertial assault that is simultaneously as stupefying as it is doggedly transcendent. Noise, not music. Best listened to with a foggy brain. RIP Kawakami, Kawakami forever. (Shit Zoo)
(La Vida Es Un Mus)
