It must have been about four years ago that I first heard Trout Mask Replica. My recent discovery of Baroness and Mogwai had urged me to seek bands in very different places of the musical spectrum than those whose logos currently adorned my cutoff denim vest. So I dragged myself to a CD shop and proudly and pretentiously announced to the clerk that I wanted something “weird” and “out-there.” This mysterious, bearded, smelly man, whom I have never had the pleasure of seeing again, was happy to oblige; he handed me a noticeably used copy of Trout Mask Replica, with a worn case and booklet to boot. Now when I got home and put the record on, I hated it. I listened to about three tracks, quickly pronounced it unlistenable, untalented crap and condemned to the forgotten pile where I kept all the old Blink-182 albums that shamed me in front of my super metal buddies.
Fast-forward to early 2012 and you’d find me at the peak of my Lester Bangs idolatry (not that it’s ended). I was looking through a list of albums Mr.Bangs held in high regard on some Internet publication or the other, and after I saw that fish man staring at me I remembered that, hey, I had that record. And so I went back to the dusty pile and pulled Trout Mask Replica out and put it on. I was stunned. Trout Mask Replica is a record that, unlike any other in the history of contemporary, non-academic music (that didn’t make a lot of sense; basically, I’m trying to exclude post-Schöenberg “classical” composers while trying to include all rock, jazz and such, cool?) has explored uncharted, almost unthinkable possibilities. Its influence and importance does not lay in the establishment of a new sonic template, but rather in the places it dared to go and the doors it opened, doors that many have peeked through without ever daring to go in as deeply as the music on this record did.
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band were one of many blues-rock outfits going about in the late 60’s, a bit weirder and more atonal than most, but still, a blues-rock outfit. After the release of Strictly Personal, Captain Beefheart had his Magic Band rehearse a new set of compositions for about a year. The compositions ended up being Trout Mask Replica. It’s important that I tell you this because on first listen, the record might sound improvised, even random. High-pitched, atonal guitars crash into each other, drums appear to be constantly soloing in non-existent time signatures, the bass walks alone and seemingly blind, all while the Captain hollers and howls his surreal poetry atop a completely different wavelength than that on which any semblance of a beat appears to exist. A flurry of saxophones weaves in and out of the music, occasionally the band locks into what appears to be a regular blues riff and then before you know it the Captain is left alone, furiously babbling what seems like complete non-sense.
Don’t get me wrong with what I’m about to say here, I love Jefferson Airplane and 13th Floor Elevators as much as the next guy, but, with my admittedly limited experience with LSD as a reference, Trout Mask Replica is the only record I’d describe as genuinely psychedelic. To quote the great John Peel, “Trout Mask Replica isn’t weird; it exists in a sort of super-reality.” Allow me to attempt an explanation of the rather cryptic remark. Trout Mask Replica derives much of its raw aesthetic material from the realms of blues, jazz, pop and rock, particularly its instrumentation. This is the music that all of us grew up with, it is the music that has weaved itself into the fabric of our lives, it reflects and expresses them in a way that the “classical” music of the past perhaps never could. As beautiful as Bach, Handel and Mozart are, theirs is more and idealization of life and beauty that a straight reflection of it. Even when composers decided to inflict some reality and grit into their music, the grandeur of their format most often did not allow them to connect quite as primordially as contemporary music has been able to do. Now we are used to hearing certain things within our beloved contemporary music, everyone, no matter how musically informed or uninformed, is subconsciously used to certain musical rules, parameters for rhythm, melody, harmony and structure. Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band take elements the music we love and take them places we never even knew they could go. A howling blues man going on about octopuses and chandeliers, electric guitars twitching and screeching atonally, songs crashing in on themselves chaotically rather than having peaks and valleys, melodies twist, rhythms convulse, and structure is beyond discerning.
Such a violent and extreme reinterpretation of the music that reflects our lives necessitates a violent and extreme reinterpretation of reality itself, and it is because of this that I call this record psychedelic, and I believe it is because of this that John Peel spoke of it existing in a “super reality.” It is my honest belief that this record isn’t “weird” for the sake of being so, but rather as an honest expression of a radically different reinterpretation of the world around us, much like how the writings of the Breton and Desnos were not just exercises in self-gratifying abstraction but rather the reflection of an alternate vantage point, often obtained through the use of all sorts of fun substances.
I can practically hear the defiant cry of “so what!?” Complexity, conceptual or otherwise, does not make for quality, and being unconventional does not make a record good, even though unconventional is not nearly enough of a word to describe what’s going on here. Now here is where I will admit words will fail me even more than they usually do. For you see, Trout Mask Replica, aside from all its brilliance and strangeness, is a raw, angry, sad and beautiful record. It is a reinterpretation of human reality, which of course means that its core elements, sadness, anger, beauty, love, joy and fear are all intact. Stripped of all the nonsense I’ve been babbling on about for about a thousand words now, this album connects on a deeply emotional level with those willing to look through the bizarre, twisted lens it provides. And that is why this is one of my favorite works of art ever, it is why I consider it unrivaled; it manages to be complex and experimental like no other while still reaching the heart and the throat like no other. Trout Mask Replica does not fall into the trap that most of that so-called “musician’s music” falls into. It creates a completely different perspective of reality, changes everything that’s comfortable and normal about the world without ever leaving it behind; it becomes an even more powerful expression of the human tragicomedy by elegantly twisting its surface until it becomes almost unrecognizable, only to then show us that the core of it has remained untouched all throughout.
“We do not discuss the universe; we express it.”
E.M. Cioran
