Sef III

Description

Recorded in Montreal, Quebec by Duncan Moore (reel to reel tape, voice, electronics), Max Eilbacher (electronics, synth, voice) and Alexander Moskos (voice, programming), SEF III presents a series of visions and vignettes on LP. Moskos (Dranolith, AIDS Wolf) hired Eilbacher (Horse Lords) and Moore (Headband) as the rhythm section for Drainolith after seeing them perform as Needle Gun, their ferocious Baltimore based acid rock combo (one Needle Gun performance featured the entire McDonald's gang; Clown Ronald, Hamburglar, Grimace).

Before the Drainolith tour the trio decided to play together doing a text and electronics piece in Duncan's front yard. "Let's make a record," they said. It gets made August 2015 in Moskos's Montreal studio. Local Montreal artists Dom Alexander and Joshua Bastien refer to the current batch of underground jammers as freedom clowns: trixters, jokers, cheap entertainment for an overeducated crowd, capable always of a Tim Curry turn. Pagliacci; the opera by Ruggero Leoncarlo, about a cuckold husband forced to play a clown in a comedy-within- a-comedy suits the times well.

SEF III begins with a phantasm, Duncan Moore's clown summoning text. Then there's the legend of Crippy Lemare, Montreal Hell's Angel hangaround. There's a near-future call-center job, itself a stage-show within the stage show of this SEF III album, not unlike Pagliacci. There's also a guide to the battle tool. Just in case you thought of entering next years DMC competition. SEF III presents their vision as post-music. Everything reduced to a process, the dream of creating a story-based record for the age of memetic fractal echoing.

What are you doing when you say you are making music? Post-music excludes the idea that music is a source of immutable power. From whence do those in music, who act about the world without consequence derive this power? When did music become so sacred? Its practitioners become so priestly. Where's the power come from, clown? Like the basic categories of type in a drug-trade ecosystem according to Spike Lee circa 1995: there are Clockers and there are Clowns. Post-music admits the clown in us all. SEF III moves forward and leaves the music behind. It's the noble clown move.