Last Exit Album Reviews

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Köln (1990)

Köln (1990)

8.5

Hard School / Brain Damage / Taking a Beating / Last Call / Dark Heart

Köln If you think Pantera took things as far as possible, you’re wrong. If you think Napalm Death laid down the most intense racket ever created by mankind, you’re wrong. Hell, even if you think Naked City’s aural assault on Grand Guignol was too extreme for people who like extremity, you’re wrong. Köln is quite possibly the most intense album I have ever heard. Or, it’s at least up there with Peter Brötzmann’s Machine Gun, an unapologetically heavy act of sonic terror that kick-started the European free jazz movement. Unsurprisingly, the same Brötzmann, 20 years older but still a player of Gargantuan stature, was also one of Last Exit’s core members. Bill Laswell, a versatile bass player in his own right, formed the band in the mid-‘80’s with the idea of creating an unholy hybrid of jazz and rock energy, and with these four participants, the volcanic promises are fulfilled. Although he remained a cult figure throughout his life, Sonny Sharrock goes down as one of the true modern innovators, a guitar player who fearlessly explored his instruments’ possibilities. Since the ‘60’s he’d been experimenting with textures and techniques that helped him to get rid of traditional ways of playing, while his influence on cutting edge-musicians (Sonic Youth, Nels Cline, Fred Frith, Bill Frisell, etc) can’t be underestimated. Then, there’s Ronald Shannon Jackson, who worked with most of the giants of free jazz (Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Cecil taylor), and did so much outrageous stuff on a drum kit that he doesn’t even remember how to play conventionally. On top of that, there’s the Brötzmann machine, the guy with the biggest lungs of Europe, a saxophone barbarian who suggests he can blow horns to pieces in a split-second. In the hands of this guy, an instrument becomes, indeed, a weapon.

Taking the concepts of “musical democracy” and “pure improvisation” into reality, the band’s first performance was completely unrehearsed, and also this release, which captured a gig recorded in Köln, Germany, recorded in February of 1986 (but released only four years later), finds them at an early stage. It’s nearly impossible for a rock fan like me to analyse stuff like this theoretically, but I’m pretty sure that very few people would be interested in that. This release isn’t about paper, modulations and scales. It’s about sweat, emotion, blood and undiluted, blood-raw ENERGY, mostly in the shape of rage, since I just can’t imagine that a guy like Brötzmann, who plays EACH and EVERY SONG with the maddening intensity and single-mindedness of a psychopath, thinks about doing the dishes or buying tulips when he steps up on stage. Last Exit works on gut level, as a primal outcry for freedom, a goal that several artists and bands tried to achieve, but only few pulled off. The 19 minutes of album opener “Hard School” are simply incredible, bulldozers that obliterate everything in their way. While Laswell and Shannon Jackson provide a throbbing, galloping rhythm, Sharrock and Brötzmann are invited to let loose, which they do: Sharrock makes his six-stringed Scud wail, shriek, grate and churn out metallic sound sheets, but it’s the German’s ferocious attack that’s the song’s (and album’s) focus of attention. Of course, the downside is that there’s nothing in the way of melodies or recognisable features, but that was never the idea to start with. For minutes, the energy created by the quartet resembles that of a force of nature. Music critic Joslyn Layne wrote about Machine Gun (1968) “much like standing outside during a violent storm, withstanding this kind of fierce energy is a primal thrill,” and the same goes for most of Köln. By consequence, it’s not an album you’ll often play, and certainly not when other people are around. People who do play it on a regular basis are freaks … seriously. However, if you decide to witness the band’s ferocious dynamics and “terrible beauty” (as the liner notes have it), being in awe is surely an option. The other tracks that aren’t “Hard School” usually offer quieter moments as well, when only one musician freaks out, or when they keep up a vaguely familiar rhythm for a while like in “Brain Damage,” whereas “Last Call” is a superb showcase for Sharrock’s scratching style, with the entire band making the weirdest noises imaginable during “Dark Heart.” Overall, however, listening to Köln and its INHUMAN moments, feels like looking into the eye of extremity itself.
The question remains whether you’re willing to pay for that.

Note: To my knowledge, Last Exit recorded only one studio album, but several live releases are still available. The band broke up when guitarist Sonny Sharrock died in 1994.