Heavy Window [LP] in Bloomington, MN

The Midwest has long been a home for musicians who have found their own path for getting into the good groove -- spin some
Parliament/Funkadelic
,
Ohio Players
, or
Curtis Mayfield
if you need pertinent examples -- and
Apache Dropout
show that the boogie can manifest itself in strange yet remarkable ways when you take it to Indiana and feed it a certain amount of hallucinogens. On their third album,
Heavy Window
seem less interested in giving up the funk than in finding the great pulse that governs us all, and drummer
Seth Mahern
sure does his best to re-create it in the studio.
Mahern
's primal beat-keeping recalls the unyielding rhythmic heartbeat
Maureen Tucker
brought to
the Velvet Underground
, and it's an ideal foundation for
Nathan Warrick
's throbbing, subsonic bass and the noisy report of
Sonny Blood
(aka Sonny Alexander) and his guitar. Thanks to
and
Warrick
, you can dance to
'til the cows come home, but
Blood
makes sure to keep this party as trippy as he can, with blankets of fuzztone, aggressive panning, and bursts of atonal noise, not to mention tossing in non-sequiturs from aged spoken-word albums.
's version of psychedelic boogie rock is inarguably warped, but this reverb-laden, low-budget trip into the unknown is also a lot of fun;
is as frantic and trippy as anything from
Thee Oh Sees
or
Ty Segall
, but it's a good bit less self-conscious, and has an admirable sense of oddball humor. (And "Detective" is also one of the more unusual
Chuck Berry
rip-offs/homages you're likely to hear.)
may be acid-fried boogie men, but there is some real semblance of boogie to be found on
; just let it take hold and you'll be shaking 'til sunup. ~ Mark Deming