b r a n d o n

Any listener familiar with the three musicians that make up OffOnOff — Terrie Ex (The Ex), Massimo Pupillo (Zu), and Paal Nilssen-Love (Atomic, The Thing, and tons of collaborations with folks like Ken Vandermark, Peter Brötzmann, Lasse Marhaug etc) — should be fairly unsurprised by the kind of music on Clash. Heavy, spiky, free-improv rock is the order of the day here, with lots of slow-burning jams building into eardrum-punishing blowouts. Imagine a more "out" version of Scorch Trio — an apt comparison since Nilssen-Love is a member of both groups — and you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect. "Rabbit Punch" kicks things off in fine fashion; it's almost as if the trio are looking to weed out the weak, as this is one of the more start-to-finish intense pieces on the record. The approach of the group seems to be that all three of the musicians are leaders, as any one of the three might shove their way to the forefront with little or no warning. Pupillo's heavily distorted bass sound gives the whole affair a distinctly earthy feel, while Ex plays his guitar in a fractured style that sounds like spiders tap-dancing haphazardly on the strings. "Calls" introduces a structure that recurs throughout the album, as the three musicians begin tentatively, feeling each other out for a few minutes before gradually unleashing their full fury. Once again, Scorch Trio provide a convenient point of comparison; both of these groups revel in unabashed cacophony, while successfully balancing their noisier moments with spacy buildups and a broad dynamic range. For the uninitiated, Clash is sure to be an awfully challenging listen, as there is nary a conventional melody to be found here, and only rarely does the group break out into an actual groove (and then only for a few seconds before one band member invariably veers off to explore some other tangent). But anyone who like guitar-led free-improv that leans more towards rock than jazz will find plenty to like here. The next step is Original Silence, which adds Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke and Mats Gustafsson to the OffOnOff trio for a truly freewheeling, gloriously abrasive, unapologetically inaccessible listening experience. Clash is a nice stepping stone to that group's recording. review by Brandon Wu — 7-7-08 —