Review Summary: A primordial decree.
Industrial aesthetics in the groove, cold synth tapestry, guitars weaving the post punk edge staccato with amp feedback; these are the frames surrounding Franklin James Fisher, who adopts the call and response approach of countless southern sermons and their popular music sublimate. In truth, this is mere texture or pretext for what truly lies beyond the fuse.
The crux of Fisher's gospel, calls upon a mode of delivery preceding the ramifications of the great awakening, or the Baptist pastor emeritus, or institutions. It mimics the highest rank of prelacy in its oldest format--a different brand of frontmanship. There's a progenitorial figure leading the groove around the fire, clapping feet and claves, while the tribe integrates and responds to its call. The posterior manifestation of this modus found its way 'cross the Haitian chain and the south states without consent. It got infused with the turmoil on the cotton fields and adapted crucifixes in lieu of talismans; it got educated and politicised, and then it instigated uprisings; it got modernised and post-modernised, and then it fused high with low art. It came to realise irony.
"We’ll put our faith into Afro Pop
in a decolonized context
Espouse the aesthetes’
contempt for ethos
Irony. Utility. Pretext.
Embrace primitive man
(La-la-la-la-la, you say)
Destroy primitive man
(La-la-la-la-la, you say)
With our art
we’ll transcend again"*
Adaptation is the primordial defence mechanism and rhythm is a primal mean of communique. For to gather the congregation, awaken and protect the tribe against the wilderness--for to provoke and exorcise the malevolent surroundings. Whatever it is (being called upon), let us utilise any means available to keep it alive... so, for the time being, let our medium be Algiers' debut.
