The Rise & Fall Of The Eurojesters

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“Having already lamented The Decline Of Western Civilization, the alarmingly prophetic Tru Westerners rise once more to lay waste to conventional musical structures and themes in their continuing quest for meaningful sonic abandon.

The freewheeling collective have been busy on their own terms since their last group efforts, but they reconvene for The Rise And Fall Of The Eurojesters at a time when the external pressures of global politics, economics and environmental concerns point to an uncertain future. In the face of such ambiguity, the dogged experimentation of Tru West feels like a logical response, manifested here in two original pieces and some equally daring remixes and edits.

“Tru Children” is a bubbling stew of sounds flowing into each other, unbound to the dogmatic structure of a timeline. A basic rhythm tick emerges to the music on course, but this is really an exercise in letting go, as the rippling percussion and field recordings intertwine into a dualistic whole – chaotic yet strangely calming.

Herva takes this meditation as a starting point and crafts his sharply focused “Cobra 90” revision with brittle drum machines and post punk bass as the main ingredients. The bass in particular stands out, not least because Herva recorded it through the titular Carlsboro Cobra 90 amplifier. While the groove may be more discernible, the slippery qualities of the original version linger in the background to keep this far from the conventional dancefloor.

Captured in 2013 during Tru West’s first live improvisation at the Meinblau Gallery in Berlin, “Chasing The Loophole in a Relentless Spiral of Self-indulgence” was performed alongside the Standpunkt exhibition by Alessandro Lupi. In the spirit of the environment, this piece heads even further out on a surge of haunting piano, tonal interference and verbal reflections on telekinesis. Where “Tru Children” was an organic, fluid mixture of many sounds, this is an uncomfortable claustrophobia triggered by clamouring machines.

Marcello Napoletano takes this maelstrom of sonic activity and creates his own brand of intensity with a two-part edit. Rather than paring down the extravagant original, in Part 1 he instead pushes the material further, layering up even more wild sounds from percussion to heavily processed jazz instrumentation. In Part 2, the veteran Italian producer makes the concession to bring a rugged drum machine beat into the mix, but uses it merely as a structure around which to wield vast slabs of sonic matter. It’s an apocalyptic finishing move to a record that, as ever, feels like a shriek in response to an ever-more-unhinged world.”