Experimental/Post rock Appreciation Threa

12 Twelve L'Univers Acuarela

Maybe I got started on all this after looking 12twelve up on Allmusic.com. They categorize 12twelve as rock and that just doesn’t seem to make sense to me. Just because they’re a 4 piece and one of those pieces plays the sax-a-ma-phone doesn’t make it jazz. But the fact that the other 3 play guitar, bass, and drums doesn’t make it “rock” either. And it sure as hell ain’t “post rock.” But wait, Jens Neumaier is also credited as playing keyboards and effects in addition to sax. And L’Univers, their third album, was produced by Steve Albini, so it’s gotta be post rock, right?? Not at all. When I listen to something as interesting as this, I think “jh-aaaaz.”

L’Univers fits this category in every way. The tempos swing, the drumming is loose, bass bobs around, horns and effects skitter in and out, and at root, the entire product is strictly jazz. In the same way you can consider the early Meat Puppets punk. It’s the attitude, the meaning behind it, which makes it what it is.

The most incredible thing about the album is the production. This pretty much goes without saying when Steve Albini is involved. He says he doesn’t produce albums, that he records them. Well, this is certainly one case where it sounds just like that; there isn’t the big room-y sound you’ve come to expect from him. There is more attention paid to where each sound is placed. The electronic effects dart in and out of your ears and the drums rumble all over the place. (Be sure to listen to this in the car. In some places the drums start moving around down by your feet.) If this whole rock n’ roll thing fails to take off, Albini could make a good career out of recording jazz musicians. His work on this album leads me to wonder how Coltrane’s later works would have sounded under similar direction.

Guitarist Jaume Pantaleon easily crafts memorable melodies through both chord progressions and individual notes that work extremely well in conjunction with Neumaier’s sax. Together they create varying atmospheres from song to song. Pantaleon uses a wide variety of effects to move from moody droning to more accessible pieces. All the while the rhythm section keeps it in one piece, supporting the two musicians while they break into new ground. Among the 16 tracks, there are a few that consist of nothing more than noise breaks and electronic blips and horn bleats. If several songs were extended using these tracks as sections, the album would work better as a whole. Thankfully they are short enough that they don’t weigh the work down.

Delving into the realm of jazz can be a pretty intimidating thing. What is it that makes Coltrane & Ornette & Sonny great? There are tones and textures and moods and flavors, scales and runs and fills, not to mention time signatures and hundreds of other things that are all discussed within the first few pages of a Down Beat magazine. L’Univers seems to make all this a lot easier to comprehend. It makes sense to both the indie rock doofus (c’mon, you know you have no idea why all that noise on Ascension is good), and to the hip cats. It’s an album you will actually keep coming back to because you thoroughly enjoy it and it sounds good. It may not be as good as Sax On The Beach but it costs less than 500 bucks and you won’t have to swallow a Krusty Brand jagged edge to buy it.