Bright
http://www.bright-music.com

styles: kraut rock, space rock
others: Can, Windy and Carl, Neu!

Bells Break Their Towers
Strange Attractors, 2005
rating: 3.5/5
reviewer: matt weir


About four weeks ago, I decided that I'm uninterested in listening to any album unless the musicians playing are trying to transform into a non-physical entity. I'm just tired of all this bullshit pop that goes nowhere, this rock and roll that wants to fuck an under-aged girl and every "hip" noise-collage record. I guess I'm just tired of a lack of passion, a lack of reason in rock music... or maybe I'm tired music. I think it was an old Sportsguitar record that made me realize all this... geez, they sucked (especially that one song, "Tits"). So I reorganized my albums and threw out the ones that aren't trying to morph into crazy non-touchable things. Comets on Fire? That can totally stay since it's trying to become a boulder smashing. Belle and Sebastian? See you later, "clever" lyrics and decent melodies but nothing else (I'm standing by that statement). Pavement? Bye-bye everything not the second half of Slanted & Enchanted.

This is drastic, but necessary. Bright is pretty drastic and pretty necessary. Why? Because no matter what they do, they're totally doing it in a way that maybe—just maybe—might turn them into the sky.

This blast-off improv space rock group from Boston has been making Can-type whoa records for more than a decade now. By the way, have you ever gotten mad that nobody seems to be ripping off Can like every other "great" artist from back then? We hear so many VU wannabes and Kinks worshippers and Kraftwerk lovers, but no Can freaks. I've been mad about that a lot. I'm glad Bright are doing this. And they're doing it really well, melding the Can vibe with that moment in every Bardo Pond song right before the guitars start to melt the whole damn village.

Bright is about tension, no release, just a whole frickin' bunch of tension. "Bells Break Their Towers," the title 12-minute track, is so repetitive and glorious and just keeps hitting the same freakin' thing over and over that you don't realize you've been flying for the last eight minutes. It's like getting into a hot-air balloon with a really intense old professor who stares at you and mutters awesomely complex space theories, and then all of a sudden you look around and you're like, "Whoa! We're above the town! How the hell did that happen? I didn't even feel it!" And then you guys turn into the sky. Or at least that's the point. They're almost there.

Bright aren't bullshitting with guitar solos or leads or big melodies or anything that's going to get them popular. They're going to become the sky, god damn it. And wouldn't you rather listen to a band that wants to be the sky than the one that wants to open for U2? I dunno, maybe it's just me. Or maybe it's just hearing that damn Sportsguitar record again. But in terms of my record collection, Bright definitely makes the cut.

Hey, how the hell did I get up here?

1. Manifest Harmony
2. Ear Out, An
3. Flood
4. Receiver
5. It's What I Need
6. Secret Form Of Time
7. Bells Break Their Towers
8. Night