SOUNDTRACK: PHIL PULEO-Phil Puleo’s poly”WOG” 1996-2003 (2003/2020).
Phil Puleo has been the drummer for Swans for a number of years. He has also been in Cop Shoot Cop and a number of other bands. He also lived in New Jersey and was a good friend of a good friend of mine. So I’ve hung out with him a few times and was pretty excited for him to get the gig with Swans. I was really looking forward to seeing them this past winter, but theirs was one of the first shows to get postponed until next year.
So Phil has reissued (and remastered) some of his solo projects.
This one is described as
Highly effected samples of me playing various instruments. Guitar, Piano, Bass, Percussion, Electronic percussion, hammered dulcimer, harmonica, found audio recordings, weird answering machine messages etc. Many of these tracks were recorded around the Swans are Dead tour in 1997 in my home in NJ.
So you get fourteen tracks of warped instrumental songs. They sound like a soundtrack to a world that is slightly out of phase with ours.
“Italianato” is basically the music for “La Vie en Rose” performed on a a pipe organ that’s underwater. But its ten minutes are filled with all kinds of samples that break through the surface. By about four minutes the main melody has been stripped away to pulses of keyboards and samples of a woman saying “Are you too young to remember that? You are.” Along with a slowed voice saying “I’m a depressing motherfucker.” And that same earlier voice repeating “You are.”
“Can Somebody” opens with a somber piano that’s accompanied by swirling waves of high notes. An answering machine plays through as if from another world. I’m really enamored of the simple melody that starts after the message, like a mechanical bird singing a robotic song.
“I” is a minute and a half of a slow echoing piano melody while “Ahoy” soars with a violin-like instrument fluttering around. Until a more sinister noise comes from under the depths, surfacing again and again.
“Mother’s Plot” is based around percussive sounds. There’s also distant voices processed to sound almost like chanting. “Vio” messes around with some loosely tuned guitars and a harmonica, a kind of under the sea Western. Although half way through the song grows a bit brighter with clean guitars strumming a pretty melody. “Message” has a deep pulsing sound and delicate sprinkling of chimes and piano as a man leaves a message about burning the whole place to the ground and needing an alibi. Yikes!
“Slow By” has some plucked almost Spanish guitar enveloped by more of that pulsing sound. Once the percussion comes in the melody establishes itself to create a really interesting soundtrack. “Overgrown” has a melody based around what sounds like a dulcimer. There’s some interesting guitar sounds that come and go and a noise that sounds like a cow (but isn’t). The rubbery sound quality in this song is really terrific.
“Hill 503” is an exploration of what constitutes percussion. A steady drumbeat is accompanied by other sounds (including a violin bow banging strings) that grow and recede. By the end, an echoing guitar line re-introduces a kind of Western feel to the piece.
“Tumble” has some wooden percussion underpinning the sounds of children playing in the distance It sets for a potentially bucolic scene. Especially when combined with “Wog Maia,” a pretty guitar song with gently echoed piano and processed children’s voices.
“Indian Guy” has some gentle dulcimer in what sounds like an urban landscape. The “solo” sounds like it was manipulated by some proto-Auto-tune. “All New Baby” has some more lovely hammered dulcimer playing over the top of some sinister backing chords. The second half cycles through rising seven note patterns that provide some excellent tension.
“Everything” is the reissue’s bonus track. It does sound like he’s crammed everything that’s gone before into 90 seconds. Waves and waves of noises that resolve in a tidy little guitar piece.
This is not easy listening, but it is very evocative and visual. I’d watch whatever movie this was a soundtrack to.
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