The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (TSORPM) is one of the most interesting projects around at the moment, as it’s one of the most consistent in its attempts to look beyond the boundaries of free jazz and connect its music to New York’s No Wave scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s (feel free to compare their music to bands like Mars or DNA) or noisecore acts like Anal Cunt or the Boredoms. The project was founded by British turntablist Mariam Rezaei, who is always looking for exciting new ways to use her instrument and who has become one of the most original musicians in improvised music. The ensemble also includes Italian trumpeter Gabriele Mitelli - part of the trumpet duo Star Splitter with Rob Mazurek, Austrian rhythm machine Lukas König from Mopcut and Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen. The latter is currently probably the most daring and exciting musician in the free jazz scene, as TSORPM is really just continuing what she started with ØKSE last year. There it was conscious hip hop, here it’s alternative art rock with which she is expanding her style.
TSORPM’s music combines energetic brass sounds and dense textures, driven by stormy, mostly electronic beats. It’s radical, however especially the horn section knows how to shift down a gear despite all its power. They also know how to open up space for Rezaei’s kaleidoscopic electronic layers, which are often reminiscent of Sun Ra. Rezaei unleashes heavily distorted samples that oscillate between computer game sounds and pure noise. But instead of wildly fragmenting everything, her playing fulfills several functions: She amplifies and directs the rhythmic flow and acts like a pianist, providing the structural framework for the project. In doing so, she manages not only to use the sampled material in a brutal way, but also to add subtle pointillistic touches.
The most powerful tracks are “In the silence of trouble, we find each other on common ground“ and “I said no“. The former impresses with its rockist approach, sluggish heavy metal beats, forward momentum, and the raw power of the drums, over which Rasmussen and Mitelli lay down their wild free jazz lines as if Peter Brötzmann and Toshinori Kondo were jamming with Napalm Death. “I said no” is an industrial monster that could also be played in a dark wave club. The beats are missing, a mega-sombre background noise dominates and the heaviness of the sound is hard to bear, but the delicate synthesizer lines, which can hardly assert themselves, symbolize a little hope.
Finally, one must not ignore the title of the project. It’s taken from an etching by Francisco Goya entitled “El sueño de la razón produce monstruos.” When Goya used this title, he probably meant that during his own sleep or dreams, when his rational mind was switched off, he was plagued by monsters - hallucinations, terrors, nightmares. However, his rational mind when awake was able to prevent these things from coming to the surface. Nowadays, however, a different interpretation has gained acceptance - one that is more general and more critical of society. When a society itself ceases to act rationally, especially when it elects its leaders on the basis of populism and emotions, monstrous things will happen. The rationalism of a modern society normally keeps the human monsters among us in check, but when this characteristic of being guided by thought and intellect disappears from society, not only do such human monsters emerge, but the entire society becomes corrupted and falls into irrationality, fear, anger, and hatred. It would be mischievous not to think of current trends in Western democracies.
So who are the monsters we create in our sleep? TSORPM reflects on this question with the help of sound and spontaneity, with harshness and dissonance - as one should in today’s world. They try electroconvulsive therapy, nine shocks in nine tracks, in the hope of reviving our dying consciousness.
The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters is available as a CD and as a download. You can listen to it here:
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