The Flying Luttenbachers Systems Emerge out of Complete Disorder

[Troubleman Unlimited; 2003]

Rating: 5/5

Styles:  avant-jazz-classical-metal
Others: Grand Ulena, Ruins, Lightning Bolt


I thought Everyone Alive Wants Answers, brilliantly reviewed by will(oma, would have been the best album I'd hear in 2004. Then, Systems Emerge out of Complete Disorder, the latest experiment from The Flying Luttenbachers, somehow landed in my lap. I listened to it once, and it blew my ass away. I thought maybe this was a challenger to Colleen's 2K4 supremacy. I listened a couple more times, and it was edging past that electro-spook fest with every time through. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that Systems Emerge (along with Everyone Alive Wants Answers) was released last year. I guess my rationale was that something this good doesn't slip under the radar for almost two months. Anyhow, I'm going to give that tired last year fetish the middle finger and say that this is easily one of the best albums I'll hear in 2004.

I'll be honest and admit this is my first Luttenbachers experience, and what a shame that is. The paterfamilias of the Luttenbachers clan is the obscenely talented Weasel Walter. He's a drummer first and foremost, but also unfairly talented on the guitar, sax, and piano. A bevy of Luttenbachers has come and gone, most notably the auteur saxophonist, Hal Russell. However, on this particular release it's Walter all by himself.

If you ever get that sense of dread when you see a tracklisting that culminates with a 15-minute plus monster, Systems Emerge will dispatch those worries with record haste. Immediately launching you headlong into a brutal sonic assault, the music is contrasted with the deft laptop-quiet worthiness of an Austrian electronic musician; which is then transmuted into avant-Scandinavian death metal. With that reassured, there is sufficient arsenal to keep a song compelling almost indefinitely. Contrarily, it's near impossible to discern what has been composed or what has been improvised on this album. The drums change course on a dime, but the density and complexity of sound is absolutely boggling. It conspires to articulate a single sense of chaos and foreboding gloom.

While Colleen's Everyone Alive Wants Answers does all the above in a dreamlike sense, nothing on Systems Emerge could be mistaken for a dream. Every aspect is too vivid and raw to make that mistake. This is pure carnality and terror laid bare. It's the undiluted vision of some sort of genius, not for the weak of constitution.

1. Entropic Field/Total Disorder/Cellular...
2. Kkringg Beyond NGGGGG
3. Kkringg Number One
4. Kkringg Number Two
5. Thrumm'd Hte (For M)
6. Thorned Lattice, Pts. 1 & 2
7. Rise of the Iridescent Behemoth

Most Read



Etc.