I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 10, 2017] Secret Chiefs 3

When I considered going to see Dead Cross, I wanted to know who was opening.  It was a band I’d never heard of: Secret Chiefs 3.  Turns out that the band was created by Trey Spruance, one of the founders of Mr. Bungle (and played with Faith No More).  And the description of the band sounded wonderfully unusual.  I listened to some stuff online, and that made me decide to check this show out.

Their music is a little hard to describe because there’s so much behind it, so I’m quoting from two sources here:

Jonathan Zwickel in 2004:

Spruance, Secret Chiefs 3’s chief composer and a former guitarist for Mr. Bungle, is a visionary madman capable of instilling both fear and respect in his listeners. Secret Chiefs 3 have existed in various incarnations over the course of the past eight years, and have served as the funnel for Spruance’s remarkably far-flung studies of the hermetic mysteries and musical traditions of unknown and underappreciated subgenres. Album titles like Grand Constitution and Bylaws and Book M hint at the music’s vaguely metaphysical bent. [The music is] an alchemical fusion of Morricone-esque cinematic grandeur, midnight surf guitar, traditional Middle Eastern rhythms and time signatures, demonic death metal, and electronic deviance that yields a work of undeniable force.

Whether or not Spruance and his Secret Chiefs 3 are the intermediaries between heaven and earth is, um, hard to say, but with Book of Horizons it seems they’re certainly communing with a power beyond the merely human. Virtuosity, paired with a fearless love of divergent styles and the humor and talent to skillfully, unmercifully mash them up, pushes [the music] into rarified heights.

And this fascinating bit of information from Wikipedia:

In 2007, it was announced Secret Chiefs 3 has always been a general name for seven different bands, each representing a different aspect of Spruance’s musical and philosophical interests. The seven bands are Electromagnetic Azoth, UR, Ishraqiyun, Traditionalists, Holy Vehm, FORMS, and NT Fan. Spruance has stated that the sound collages of Electromagnetic Azoth serve as the center of Secret Chiefs 3.

Right.

The band came out all in hooded robes.  No one spoke.

One more note: Musicians tend to float in and out of SC3, so the concept of “current” and “former” members isn’t entirely applicable.  Thus, I have no idea who was on stage in front of me, except Trey who stood center stage.

Second guitar was stage right (I was in front of him).  The bass was stage left.  i could barely see him (there was a very tall man front and center).  I couldn’t tell if he switched out instruments but from time to time he played a very cool-sounding fretless style.

The keys were behind the second guitar and the drummer was more or less in the center.  The drummer had a hood, but he lost it pretty quickly.

And for an hour or so, they played the most amazing blend of middle eastern melodies, microtonal passages and sheer blasts of noise all with incredible precision and control.

It was utterly spectacular.

Both Trey and the other guitarist played off of each other–cool microtonal riffs as his fingers flew up and down the neck of the guitar.  Yes, I couldn’t help thin of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.  Trey did some hops and jumps in place as he played (pickless I believe).  His style of playing reminded me a tad of Les Claypool.  Some of the songs were loud and noisy, some were pretty and interesting but they were all mesmerizing.  And nearly all of them had moments where the band came to an abrupt halt and were all perfectly in synch.

A song like “Tistrya” had a lot of middle eastern melodies that the two guitarists traded back and forth on.  And on “Saptarshi” the second guitarist was clearly playing a microtonal guitar, which added surprising dexterity to the instrument.  I believe that Trey moves to second keyboards on this song.

I bought some CDs and ran out to my car.  When I came back, Trey was selling the CDs himself, but the line was too long to chat with him.

For one of the songs, the second guitarist played a bouzouki–some pretty wild soloing on that instrument.  I was never able to get a very close look at Trey’s guitars (it was quite dark), but he seemed to have some interesting things on them, too.

“Codex Alimentarius” slowed things down somewhat with a great complex drumming patterns and some cool guitar lines.

The only song I “recognized” was their “cover” of the Halloween movie these song.  While the very neat and spooky keyboard riff remains, the rest of the song is heavy and loud with crashing drums and great washes of synths.  It was really cool and the crowd was really into it..

I’m assuming it was the final song that featured a bunch of solos.  The first came from the drummer.  And it was incredible.  With such a small kit, he played a fantastically complex drum solo (not exactly a solo because the bass was there to keep a kind of one-note melody going).  And then each guitar had a chance to solo (with quieter drums).

Each musician was masterful–fast and accurate–and always perfectly in sync with everyone else.  It was a mind-blowing set.

As I walked out I heard someone say “that was the best show I’ve ever seen.”  I don;t know fi I’d go quite that far, but I would absolutely see them again.

And boy do I love their logo

I didn’t know the names of the songs, but the setlist for a number of shows recently were the same, so I’m assuming this is correctly.

• Dolorous Stroke [from Book M]
• Tistrya [from Book of Souls: Folio A]
• Saptarshi [Traditionalists single]
• RFID Slaverider [Traditionalists-Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini]
• Codex Alimentarius [Traditionalists-Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini]
• Agenda 21 [Traditionalists-Le Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomini]
• Vajra [from Book M]
• Personae: Halloween (John Carpenter cover) [from Book of Souls: Folio A]
• The 4 (Great Ishraqi Sun [from Book of Horizons]
• Brazen Serpent