THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS

Right off the bat, (apparently) immediately more satisfying and whole than their debut, Constructive Destruction (1994). The so-called "destruction" is far more "constructed" on this (from the few tracks off the debut that I have heard). And this disc is made occasionally more whole in the combination of its parts.

This is, according to them, "Spazzcore", to me, Agit-Avant-Angst (alright alliterations, all). Blazing fast performances; they definitely know how to hold one's attention. I trust an appropriate match for many fans of RIO and Avant-Rock generally. This will be barreling right into your eardrums. Get ready.

Naturally, with much Avant-Rock, there's plenty of humor in this (see the short "Sparrow's Thin Lot"). Sometimes, this is just chaos, like on "Splurge" or the scurrying, hurried and then almost noisily meditative "The Necessary Impossibility of Determinism" (great title, by the way). Unmelodious, raucous and rude. It will take a true RIO fanatic to appreciate the whole of this album.

Some tracks, such as "(In Progress...)", take chaos and hone it toward something as composed as one can possibly expect from the Flying Luttenbachers... The rhythm section must carry the compositions to their various ends. The guitar and the horns are wild and unruly (I can't believe I hadn't used this word yet haha). Certainly, not all is lost, and some listeners, as noted, will find pleasure throughout (I had a pretty good time, personally).

Sometimes, they just ham it up with something classic, as with the Avant-Jazz tune "Tiamet En Arc" (my favorite on the album). Other highlights include the opener, "Demonic Velocities/20,000,000 Volts" and "Fist Through Glass".

True Rate: 3.5/5.0

THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS led by the maelstrom making and hyperactive drummer Walter Weasel took the prog world to a new level in the 90s with a tidal wave of dissonance swirling around an Ornette Coleman fueled series of harmolodics that were teased into the world of no wave, avant-prog with tech death metal exactitude and became a major sensation in the underground where the bizarre new amalgamation of sounds was penned the term brutal prog by none other than Weasel himself. While Walter has been the only consistent member since the beginning as he has hosted a platform for some of the noisiest and most technical astute musicians outside of the metal world to strut their stuff, the band cranked out 12 albums from 1994 to 2007 at a fairly even pace but then all of a sudden in 2007, a deafening silence as the band was put on indefinite hold.

As the years passed diehard fans most likely thought that the wild musical antics of this wacky crazed band had been put to rest but lo and behold Weasel revived the LUTTENBACHERS in 2017 for a tour in France after an invitation by the Sonic Protest festival rekindled the brutal prog sleeping giant. Two years later and a whopping 12 since the last album "Incarceration by Abstraction" punished the world, THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS returns with one of the strongest albums of its entire career in the form of SHATTERED DIMENSION. Album #13 finds a whole new cast of noisemakers with saxophonist Matt Nelson (GRID, Elder Ones), bassist Tim Dahl (Child Abuse, Lydia Lunch, Unnatural Ways), and guitarist Brandon Seabrook (The Beat Circus, Naftule's Dream) playing alongside leader and primary composer Walter Weasel at the helm abusing his drum kit.

SHATTERED DIMENSION is a much more structured and dare i say "mature" album that tightens things up without sacrificing one iota of the frenetic dissonant filled angst that has made THE LUTTENBACHERS so brutally powerful. The album cover perfectly depicts what to expect on this album. Imagine if you will the long term mascot, the robot dude is Weasel himself. As the band leader, he creates an underlying structure in the form of steady beats, grooves and rhythmic flows while still finding the proper jazzified fills to reverberate between the cracks, provide a stable leash to tether the others on. This consistency provides the proper gravitational pull to allow the other musicians symbolized by the ring of chaos around robot dude to flutter around like the individual particles that rotate around like Saturn's rings therefore just like the chaotic randomness of the individual particles, they are allowed to free flow anywhere they want as long as they do so within the proper framework. The result is a simultaneously tight rhythmic album with all the freeform chaos you could hope for. Progressive no wave has arrived!

Now residing in NYC, THE LUTTENBACHERS recorded their five tracks which clock in at the 54 plus minute mark at the legendary Seizures Palace with sound engineer Jason LaFarge who tackles the daunting task of keeping the sound from coalescing like a pack of dogs on a muddy road. The album opens with "Goatsteppin" which opens with the band in unison like a marching band almost but in no time at all the track drifts into the paradigm of Weasel taking the role as the center of gravity while the band engages in a frenetic freewill into harmolodics like a rampaging Hulk in the Avengers movie. The inspiration is said to be gleaned through the ambitious improvisation techniques of the 70s supergroup Last Exit. "Cripple Walk" follows with a proggy guitar led riff attack that adds a much more heavy rock guitar heft with wickedly dissonant licks trading off with sizzling sax squawks and atonal chord angularness of the guitar. The track ramps up to a frenetic free for all climax.

"Epitaph" begins with a series of drum rolls and the innocence of a few power chords but quickly turns into a brutal stomp of the bass and drums that goes on for nearly 13 minutes with the guitar and sax having a sword fight to the death as one grows more and more intense until the cacophonous display of brutality climaxes in a finale that sounds like a warehouse of fireworks had exploded in a deafening thunderous roar. "Sleaze Factor" while still angular and frenetic provides a less cacophonous experience. Liner notes indicate the primary influences are Ornette Coleman's "Prime Time" era and Arthur Blythe but this is a heavy rock / jazz hybrid and the guitar, bass and drum exist somewhere in between. The grand finale is the monstrous 22 minute "Mutation" which creates a series of segments that focus on highly abstract sonic juxtapositions of pure dissonance, frenetic drumming and lengthy episodes of repetition which in some ways remind me of the Italian avant-prog Zu on "Carboniferous." The lengthy time allows a multitude of variations to spin off and develop and sometimes but usually not return to an already visited theme. The most abrasive and obnoxious display of brutality the already orotund album has to offer.

On paper, SHATTERED DIMENSION may sound like a complete mess but is actually a brilliant analysis of systematic chaos and order with each finding new anchors and then trading off. While the noise factor is turned up to 11 as is the dissonance and brutal frenetic bombast, somehow the incessantly rhythmic stability keeps everything centering around a focal point and allows the free improvisation to erratically zigzag around like a fleury of energy bolts from a Tesla coil. The album is beautifully mixed and completely instrumental. For those who haven't been indoctrinated into the brutal prog club of which has become a synonym for Wonder Weaseland (Walter really should follow Buckethead's lead and create his own amusement park!), there is no doubt this will drive you flat out bat[&*!#] but if the most edgy hardened outbursts of prog and jazz making as much noise as possible is your idea of a good time then it really doesn't get much better than the creatively displayed chaos and order of THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS comeback album SHATTERED DIMENSION. Ok, now that everything is obliterated to smithereens, someone clean this mess up already!

What can one possibly say about one of the strangest bands to hit the rock scene at least since Iggy Pop adopted the role of hacking himself up with sharp objects and then rolling around the stage seemingly possessed by demons. Well, THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS may have kept all their bodily fluids to themselves but musically speaking, these guys were just plain, well nuts! Emerging in the early 90s just as the prog rock scene was starting to awaken from its decade long slumber with bands like Dream Theater and Anglagard shrugging off their sleepy eyes and reviving the lush melodic splendor of glories of yesteryear, THE FLYING LUTTENBACHER on the other hand were a part of a new strain of prog that was designed to wake the dead! The world would never be the same!!!

Founded in Chicago by the drummer / miscreant-in-chief Walter Weasel, THE LUTTENBACHERS took a cue from the frenetic zeal of Japan's zeuhlistic Ruins and other noise rock acts while marrying it with the skronk jazz of John Zorn, the twisted psychotic blues rock of Captain Beefheart and the more caffeinated punk sensibilities of UK's finest anarchic coven of mohawk donning hoodlems. Add a few tablespoons of math rock, a dash of technical death metal and two cups of avant-prog angularity and voila! You have exactly what Walter Weasel meant when he coined the term brutal prog, a style of prog so utterly bombastic with every aspect of the genre is turned up to 11 and going for the jugular incessantly, without stop ad infinitum. Oh yeah, the funny name was derived from original member Hal Russell's birth name which was Harold LUTTENBACHER, however he was long gone by the time this debut CONSTRUCTIVE DESTRUCTION finally hit the market.

Over the years the LUTTENBACHERS have been known for their energetic excesses and a fondness for brutal dissonance and acting as a ring master to force the disparate genres of rock, jazz, avant-prog, noise rock, punk and no wave to perform unthinkable acts together which could be illegal in several US states even. I would also be remiss not to mention of the unfolding tale about a cosmic battle between a void, a behemoth and a giant robot that have been buried in the Earth and will only resurrect after the human race suffers complete annihilation. While the music is completely instrumental, you would have to bother to pay attention to the liner notes and song titles to even have a clue that this is a part of the equation and if you're like me, you couldn't give a rat's ass and just want to hear the saxophones battle like gladiators in an ancient Roman colosseum scenario with each shredding squawk and no wave guitar agonizing like an freshly fed Christian devoured by lions. Quite ugly indeed.

While the LUTTENBACHER project would only grow more brutal and even crazier as time elapsed, on this debut CONSTRUCTIVE DESTRUCTION things are already off to an explosive roar of pent up energy bursting out onto the unsuspecting prog scene. While it's true that band's like Mr. Bungle and Naked City may have served as the appropriate flutters for the Western world, Weasel had obviously been peeking over at our Japanese friends who were already dishing out some highly caustic, bombastic and utterly dissonant orotundity unlike anything heard outside of Godzilla's domain. At this early stage the LUTTENBACHERS were a quintet. Weasel provided the spastic jazzified percussion while Chad Organ and Ken Vandermark parried their saxes like a battle with the White Walkers on Game of Thrones. Vandermark, the overachiever that he was also cranked out some serious bass & b-flat clarinets. Jeb Bishop doubled dipped into the bass and trombone departments while Dylan Posa strangled his guitar until bizarre unthinkable sounds emerged from it's suffocating neck.

Perhaps less bombastic than the later emboldened albums, CONSTRUCTIVE DESTRUCTION is hardly the easy listening experience, however between the John Zorn deconstructive jazz freakouts and the DNA no wave guitar meltdowns, there are actually catchy melodic grooves that take a little funk and apply it to a glorious saxophone duet. Somehow and i'm not sure how they pulled it off, this album comes off a a nice mix of completely unhinged avant-garde incontinence and well constructed jazz-rock where every instrument falls into line like a high school marching band threatened by the looming authoritative overheads with a longer than expected yardstick for some serious slapping of hands. All in all, THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS walked the fine line between carefully constructed compositions and anything goes free form freakery. A fine debut indeed not only for the LUTTENBACHERS themselves but for what would be penned brutal prog with bands like Upsilon Acrux, Hella, Zs, Ahleuchatistas and Yowie following soon in Weasel's footsteps. Hoorah!

The start of something ugly.

The Flying Luttenbachers (and leader Weasel Walter) are not one to mince words or hide their true intentions. They are not trying to be cute, they are not trying to be fashionable, they are not trying to be popular, they are not trying to be acceptable, and they are not trying to be beautiful. These are some of the reasons why I love to listen to this band. As a lover of "ugly music", once I found out what The Flying Luttenbachers were about I had to give them a listen. The band always seemed to be in a state of flux, with members shuffling in and out, yet certain stylistic ingredients are omnipresent and congealed together into a dense aural stew. At times, strictly composed, other times completely free; however, a thread does run through it all. The Flying Luttenbachers intend to make impenetrable, obtuse, difficult music that most people would easily file into the noise/unlistenable column. Squawking woodwinds/keyboards, dissident-feedback driven guitars, relentless flailing drums, punk energy, doses of full-fledged noise decadence, and an over-the-top nihilistic approach saturate the core of this music regardless whether it is written or improvised.

On Constructive Deconstruction they are firmly planted in a free-jazz mode, fuelled by a line-up of dual saxophonists (including free-jazz stalwart Ken Vandermark), guitar, bass, and drums. Even though the overall mood is free-jazz, there is still clearly structure around. Recognizable melodic forms are commonly introduced and at its most composed (or at least most composed sounding) the double sax lead lines remind me of The Muffins' or Sax Ruins' more full-throttled productions, complete with nimble sax playing and muscular yet precise drumming. The typical jazz structure of head-solo-head-solo-etc. does get its work out as well, albeit in a non-straight jazz way. While free- jazz is certainly the most obvious ingredient, there are other feelings, moods, and atmospheres heavily in play here, usually being snared together to create a homogenous product, that represents the sound of this particular The Flying Luttenbachers lineup quite well: Doses of catchy melodic blocks, free playing, and ample room for soloing all arranged succinctly (if not simply). Of course, this is not to imply Constructive Deconstruction is an easy listen. There is plenty of bleating from the saxophones, angular attacks from the guitar, spastic drumming, and harmonic irreverence abounds. However, there are times when I detect a playful vibe infiltrating the proceedings, which gives sprinkling of a certain child-like aura, and creates a notable juxtaposition amid the free jazz flavored chaos. Highlights include: The bouncy yet aggressive Pointed Stick 93-B, the quirky and loose Playing In The Dumpster, the strong and almost retro-jazzy Brainstorm, and the full out free- jazz assaults of The Indiscreet Notion.

All in all, this is a strong debut of a sadly short lived lineup. (I suppose it is only fair to say that this is also my favorite instrument line-up of The Flying Luttenbachers (dual sax, guitar, bass, drums) and while most advantages of this lineup are fully taken advantage of I do think this lineup could have grown and blossomed further.) This is certainly a difficult listen for people unaccustomed to more out-music, but this definitely is not unmelodious. There are enough catchy melody lines that will allow this to appeal to a boarder selection of people (albeit slightly). That said, an appreciation of jazz (particular free-jazz) is necessary to fully enjoy Constructive Deconstruction. A band and album that is certainly not for everyone, but for those that do enjoy this type of stuff, a pleasurable and entertaining cache is to be discovered. Thus, I will attach a cautiously recommended ranking, with a 3.5 star rating, rounded up for sheer enjoyment.

well this is where the luttenbachers start! weasel walter's avant/jazz/concept/band started as a free jazz band and as a admiration to a personal hero for weasel hal russell while russell was co-founder and origin of the band's name he never had a chance to appear any of the studio albums after the foundation of the band russell decided to spent more time with his legendary nrg ensemble and died in 92 and in 94 came the debut of "the luttenbachers" with full free jazz/style and this is (IMHO) the only "real" free jazz record luttenbachers did and what they did is absolutely magnificent body of work! the luttenbachers of this album are(aside from resident luttenbacher weasel) chad organ,jeb bishop,dylan posa, and a fellow nrg ensemble saxophonist ken vandermark. and the music is really have a chicago jazz scene feeling while saxophones holds a great deal of space here chad organ's work really impressed me he is really nothing less than russell or vendermark are and does a great job dealing with saxes. particularly in this album the whole "luttenbachers" epic conceptual end of the world story is not evident here signs of future sound can be traced between almost hardcore rhythm section still chaotic as a free jazz should be but not as inaccessible as noise prog sound of gods of chaos... so this is a very powerful debut for a very very strange band and a terrific starting point for a fresh "luttenbachers" listener. one of the accessible records of luttenbachers and while the band will change into some kind of brutal prog band along their career and develop a epic story based concept discography(just like magma) this one itself separates itself from the rest of the work of the band and stand alone as a good example of avant/jazz/rock fusion especially pointed stick 93B reminds me of the king crimson and maybe the strongest track in the album, playing in the dumpster shows some ornette coleman sensitivity and another strong piece. there are also some other songs have a really tightly composed feeling especially brainstorm is a strong and really enjoyable listen. while the songs like critic stomp and the indiscreet notion are just free-form jazz chaotic but extremely powerful songs. so this is a very fine and strong debut effort from weasel and co. and gives you a hint of what will come afterwards a definite listen for jazz enthusiast and maybe the only place that you can hear the saxes that strong in an luttenbachers record so recommended and a solid 4.5 out of 5...

The Flying Luttenbachers is easily one of the strangest and least commercial bands in ProgArchives.

The music is esoteric free jazz and there is not a melody in sight on this album. The third song Black Perversion is a cover version, originally done by the primitive black metal band Havohej. To say that The Flying Luttenbachers version here is different is an understatement.

It is almost impossible to describe the music coming out of my speakers. Dissonant noises with no melody lines or any sense of purpose besides of creating havoc and total confusion among the listeners. Well, I am truly confused. Mission accomplished.

The problem is that the music is too esoteric and too chaotic even for avant-garde fans. I do not doubt the music is intelligent. But it is not for me and I am hastily withdrawing myself from their music. In fact; I am running away. This is not music for me.

2 stars

Let me start off by saying this album is not for everyone.

If you want to hear the same old Yes guitar riff or Genesis mellotron or Gentle Giant vocal harmony... skip this. If you want to hear some real progressive music that pushes the boundries of song structure/counterpoint/brutal shredding then pic this up right now. I would love to see any of the bands mentioned above play this music. HA! Keep in mind I'm a fan of all those bands; however, compared to The Flying Luttenbachers they're pop rock bands playing pop music. The Flying Luttenbachers have more to do with Arnold Schoenberg and Béla Bartók then they do with pop music. So if you want to hear something progressive or you're a fan of Schoenberg, Bartok, Xenakis, or Olivier Messiaen then I suggest you check this album out! If not... then steer clear and listen to your pop rock.

an experimusic.com review

Originally founded in 1991 as a punk jazz trio, The Flying Luttenbachers have since gone on to become something of a reclusive, sub-underground phenomenon (maybe that's what the title of this album is refers to?), releasing 17 records of innovative, envelope-pushing free-jazz laced, death-prog soundscapes all complemented by vibrant and visually stunning artwork. In their various guises they have involved a floating cast of sonic freedom fighters and jazz-warriors including Ken Vandermark (Witches and Devils, Vandermark 5) and Mick Barr (Octis, Ocrilim, Crom-Tech) but their latest (and possibly final) album 'Incarceration by Abstraction' is amazingly the sole work of one Weasel Walter. Originally intended to feature both Mick Barr and/or Ed Rodriguez, neither musician was available so instead of shelf the project, Weasel Walter defied these restraints and recorded definitive solo versions of each piece for the sake of documentation!

The first thing that will strike Luttenbacher fans of old about this 8 track, 44 minute release is just how downright cohesive and powerful it sounds, I mean, listen hard enough and you'll even uncover a few grooves! The chunky production work is a definite contributing factor as it strips away most of the raw- to-the-bone harshness in favour of rounded basses and sharp but not piercing trebles placed in a wider soundstage. Mainly though, it is the fact that song structures are rooted in the energetic skeleton of epic noisecore. This strategy creates a loose structure which is fleshed out by attacks of ultra-spazzed, angular instrumentation that utilises complex drum patterns and highly unorthodox time signatures to create an unadulterated slice of brutal prog with a mathrock dynamic. Sounding like a nothing-to-lose Don Cabellero or Oxes that are being forced at gunpoint to play for their lives after being raised on a strict diet of Anaal Nathrakh and early Rush, 'Incarcertation by Abstraction' explodes forth with a menacing, no-holds barred intent. Frenzied riffs swirl uncharted within throbbing and immensely varied percussives that move from grindcore to free jazz arrangements in a bat of an eyelid whilst hypnotic inside-out melodies dart unrestrained, dragging the listener into the music's sphere of cosmic-meltdown and sonic discontent.

'Electrocution' encapsulates the devilish jazz-prog dynamic perfectly with splintered and clashing harmonics engaging in epic battle, a soundscape that is gradually supplemented by further instrumental turbulence. Refreshingly, the whole entity of agitated sound drops into a downtuned bout of bombast mayhem that reminds one of an irate 'Behold The Arctopus'. If the previous two tracks hinted at it, 'Medusa' fully embraces the metallic agenda, chugging along forcefully like a twisted ghost-train propelled by a foundation of grinding bass, pulsing riffage, disharmonious anti-melodies and shattering percussives that creates a black-metal meets noisecore meets spazz-jazz sound a bit like Teen Cthulhu placed in a kaleidoscopic musical blender. Steeped in a hardcore punk aesthetic, 'Violent Shade's' cloaked death-prog melodics yo-yo heroically across the scales with such ferocious intensity it is like the sound is continuously running away from you, the listener trying in vein to capture it. 'Triplex' follows suit with its meandering string-based anti-melodies that branch out in a sporadic fast-forward motion that helps the track charge ahead with a sociopathic momentum that fully manipulates the disorientating power of tempo switches and off-kilter, hyper-complex drumming. After the head- nodding and dizzying, doom-laden rock'n'drone of 'Crypt Emission' which features Weasel Walter in animated drumming mode, the story moves on to the anti-melodious cosmic swirl of 'The Serialization of Cruelty'; a head-rotating, 8bit mash of angular instrumental abstraction. What then appears from the speakers is a real ear-opener as 'The First Time' commences with the soothing, atmospheric vocals of Aurora Josephson seeping out and drifting across an ever intensifying soundscape of noir-ish, metallic mathcore before being lost in a heavily manipulated Mr Bungle-ish coalescence of Jonathan Joe's comic operatic vocals.

With 'Incarceration for Abstraction', Weasel Walter has kept committed to the out-and-out intensity of previous offerings but spiced things up by experimenting with new soundscapes. He has successfully scored and produced an epic body of psyched-out battlecore, serially unrelenting in its delivery and twisting and turning at every step like the ground below it is continuously giving way. Gear shifts down into epic metal-inspired plateaus such as those featured towards the end of 'Medusa' and 'The First Time' deliver a real sense of mosh-inducing energy and unification that ties the album together beautifully. The overall 'epicness' of the sound comes as no surprise considering that the meta-text of these songs concerns the hypothetical rebirth of the robot out of the debris resulting from the cosmic battle between the void and the behemoth. Although slightly more accessible than previous recordings, to many uninitiated's, The Flying Luttenbachers sound will remain out of range as it is just a bit too claustrophobic and intimidating to be able to seep into the hipsters mindset. To the lucky few though, this release will engage the mind and body in a state of complex disorientation and bathe listening arena's in a manic, out-of-scope cloak of non-conformist combat-sonic's. One sincerely hopes that The Flying Luttenbacher's story will live on. (KS)

p.s. Try playing 'Incarceration by Abstraction' to the amazing animated video's featured on Lightning Bolt's 'Power of Salad.' DVD in a darkened room for an ultimate sonic/visual trip.

For fans of: Playing Crom-Tech, Don Cab, Upsilon Acrux, Supersilent, Crowpath, Teen Cthulhu and Nebelnest discs at the same time, backwards!

For those folks who fancy progressive rock as a genre which encompasses several fairly distinct sound templates, RIO is seen as the one where people play things that don't make sense. Accomplished musicians sometimes lack the deft categorizational know-how prized by rock critics (prog-rock critics often being the smarmiest among them), but do have ears which can separate the new and adventurous from the tired old cliches which routinely dog prog-rock and frustrate those who crave true progression. The Flying Luttenbachers are (or were, at least) at the helm of this movement, their template-shredding music rendering nonsensical the symph/neo/pop wannabe acts that have littered and confused the musical playing field since the 70's.

Incarcerated by Abstraction is the period that mastermind Weasel Walter chose to put at the end of his stint with the Luttenbachers, and a careful review of their work reveals it is a logical place to make such a turn. It is by far Walter's best work, one which bolsters the importance and validity of The Flying Luttenbachers' body of music as a whole. One doesn't have to possess a musical degree to grasp the complexity of this band; it is a hallmark of Walter's music. Complexity and richness dominate throughout, even within the frequent minimalistic segments present on the album.

It is perhaps not unfair to point out the similar influences that avant-rock bands such as Thinking Plague, 5uu's, Zs, and Henry Cow share: Bartok, Stravinsky, Penderecki, etc. The Luttenbachers often venture into these Bartokian realms of angularity, creating a distinct brand of sonic warpage which will surely send even the most ardent prog-rock critic into fits of condescending, epileptic rage.

But music such as this deserves to be separated from prog as a genre. Walter manages to meld disparate elements of the seemingly unrelated musical genres of punk, jazz, classical and, yes, PROG in order to nullify the genres altogether. This latest album is seemingly the angriest in Walter's body of work with this band. It tore me to shreds, made Henry Cow into a laughingstock. It is not for fans of Marillion, and it is not digested easily by those who seek to compare it to other RIO bands (they are not, in fact, RIO). It is adventure in the purest form that progressive music can manifest.

As for the Luttenbachers, well, some of us hate to see them go. For fans of music which absolutely destroys the air with complete abandon, go buy their stuff... all of it. Don't listen to anyone tell you otherwise.

so called prog-music exhibits a very special form of masculinity. where 'normal' rock music is operating in a first-person-shooter of muscle-packed action heroes matrix, prog-rock fashions itself as the real-time-strategy genre of the genre: dominance through brains.

unsurprisingly the scene is characterized by introversion, mannerism, romantic ideas and full of specialist discourses of people that imagine a better world if only everybody would listen to their 'more intelligent music'. since that routinely fails listening to prog still provides the mental surplus of perceived intellectual superiority.

within a world of such auto-affection the flying luttenbachers certainly bring a different set of sensibilities to the table. the will to disassemble, limitless curiosity and certainly no respect for song-structure, harmonic and rhythmic binding. rather the opposite: the forms of the rock-idiom routinely were questioned, dissected, toyed around with and put together just to see if the resulting corpse still walks. and it does, since whomever mr. weasel walter - who did not even respect the very concept of the 'band' this very special machine to stimulate male-desires - took aboard was sure to bring enough energy along to make even the stinkiest zombie jolt forward.

that said cataclysm is a more conventional output in the stretch of statements offered by weasel walter during the 15 years of existence of the luttenbachers concept. it is nonetheless their finest hour. a mature band (yes band!), that had grown together on two tours, then plugged guitar-maniac mick barr directly into their collective brain to force-develop the missing grammar between death-metal and no-wave music. 9 songs (yes songs!) of splendid abrasivenes, coldhearded isolationism, breathless stop and go eccentrics and yet it all is delivered with a tacit sensitivity not found elsewhere. the last four songs, starting with a cover-version of olivier messiaen's l'ascension, take back the forcefulness and feverishness a bit, explore quieter, more chromatic regions, turn inward and convey even a reconciliatory yet disillusioned mood.

together with the spectral warrior mythos ep cataclysm is the best showcase of the powers weasel and his luttenbachers concept could evoke, and not least why rock still matters - although you need at least 20,000,000 volts to make it fun.

recording quality is superior to other luttenbachers offerings and cataclysm is certainly an apt choice for your next visit to your audiophile dealer. in any case: make sure to listen LOUD or not listen at all!

and remember - it is not the spoon that bends!