Review Summary: All that is here will be sunlight.
If last year’s
PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone taught us anything, it’s that John Frusciante is essentially done with rock music. Pop though? Not so much. At its core, buried under the layers of bleeps, bloops, and scattershot drumbeats, were six or seven very good pop songs.
Outsides is the natural evolution of that sound, seeing Frusciante pick up where he left off on
PBX and delving even deeper into the world of electronic music, in the process abandoning any semblance of pop norms or traditional songwriting structures.
This isn’t necessarily to say that
Outsides is inaccessible. Indeed, the angel choir and bass groove in opener ‘Same’ are as infectious as they are bizarre, inviting the listener into the weird and wonderful space within. Let’s talk about ‘Same’ for a moment: a hypnotic ten minute instrumental home to a guitar solo owing far more to the everywhere-at-once mindfuckery of Robert Fripp than to previous influences such as, say, Jimi Hendrix or Bernard Sumner. Hearing Frusciante go over the edge this way brings thrill after visceral thrill as he chops, changes, and shreds with reckless abandon, showing what is possible when he nails the balance between man and machine. Where the EP stumbles is ‘Breathiac’, a short yet disruptive instrumental that targets brain over heart and ends up falling flat. It would be unfair to pin this on the lack of vocals - some of the most moving songs in this discography are instrumentals (‘Ramparts’, ‘With Love’, ‘Falling’
et al.) – moreso it seems to be flaunting some form of complex rhythmic theory (or something) and ultimately fails as a listenable tune. This area of production is where Frusciante still has much room for improvement. The ideas are there but lacking finesse, too often slipping into ham-fisted Aphex Twin worship.
Thankfully, ‘Breathiac’ is easily overlooked when followed by a track like ‘Shelf’. This here is the true gem of the record and is exactly the sort of song that vindicates Frusciante on his questionable adventures in Electroland. Without getting into tedious details, suffice to say you’ll get three minutes of fun danceable jammy goodness before abruptly switching gear into full-blown Fruphoria™ mode where everything just
clicks. Beats, grooves, choirs, and synths all come together over a gorgeous chord progression to elevate the listener to that next level before fading out and making you hit replay again and again and again. What we’ve got here is yet another worthy addition to this fine discography. A disjointed, messy, occasionally frustrating yet ultimately rewarding listen. What it lacks in polish is redeemed by those familiar flashes of JF brilliance which are again occurring with greater and greater frequency. After a dozen or so spins I can’t help but feel that John is on the cusp of something great here.
Outsides may be just a stepping stone, but it’s a pretty damn good one.
