There\u2019s really no substitute for seeing a band live, and after watching mssv play their new record last month I find myself writing a somewhat different review than what I might\u2019ve had they not come through my neck of the woods. Heck, with nearly all of September and October spent on the road and nary a day off, they probably passed through most people\u2019s neck of the woods. They\u2019re that kind of band.<\/p>\n
mssv stands for Main Steam Stop Valve and Human Reaction<\/i> is their second record. The trio includes Mike Baggetta who, if I have my facts straight, is more or less the ringleader, with Mike Watt and Stephen Hodges contributing ideas and presenting a very formidable rhythm section indeed. Watt, of course, was in minutemen, fIREHOSE, Stooges, and a thousand other solo projects and collaborations. Hodges has played with artists as varied as Tom Waits and Mavis Staples. I believe Baggetta and Watt first played together in a group called Wall Of Flowers, with well-known drummer Jim Keltner. Hodges then played drums live for some gigs performing Wall Of Flowers songs under the moniker mssv. Meanwhile, see my Daily Vault review of Baggetta_Keltner_Watt\u2019s Everywhen We Go<\/i> album for what they\u2019ve been up to recently, now operating eponymously. Point being, these musicians have been very productive as of late and know each other quite well by this time.<\/p>\n
Billed as \u201cpost-genre,\u201d this is somewhat experimental music, and Human Reaction<\/i> is not exactly Cheap Trick. But nor is it so esoteric that you can\u2019t tap your foot to it. That said, I found myself having a hard time finding a foothold on this album at first, relative to their more \u201cstraightforward\u201d self-titled debut. The songs on Human Reaction<\/i> seemed to take jarring turns and the tunes remained obscure to me. Then I saw Watt set his chair about two feet from Hodges\u2019 hi-hat (yes, chair; Watt had an injured knee), with Baggetta positioned a couple feet to Hodges\u2019 right, and watched a deep conversation take place. And that\u2019s when I finally cracked this record. Baggetta, Watt, and Hodges were trading ideas, sharing emotions, and responding to each other in real-time. It\u2019s a compelling thing to see\/hear, but was just more obvious to me in the live context. And if that sounds like jazz, that\u2019s no coincidence. More on that later.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBaby Ghost (From The 1900s)\u201d is another instrumental, with Baggetta laying a flurry of notes over Watt and Hodges unhurried loping. \u201cPillow Talk\u201d drifts in with Baggetta and Watt trading antonyms as the tension builds before Hodges punctuates the proceedings with a series of tumbling fills. Then it all happens again. Live this was one of several songs that made it clear how important Hodges\u2019 inventive and idiosyncratic percussion is to this ensemble. His tom work is intricate and lyrical, his contribution to this three-way conversation crucial.<\/p>\n Side two begins with the title cut, a flat-out rocker run through with elements of Gang Of Four and Pop Group, and perhaps even a bit of the funk underpinning those bands. My favorite song on the record finds Baggetta trading the title words with Watt and Hodges at the chorus, and his guitar scratches and scrapes while Watt, most likely my all-time favorite bassist, provides plenty of gravity. <\/p>\n \u201cJunk Haiku\u201d takes things down again, Baggetta picking along with Watt\u2019s creeping bass line as the song ebbs and flows. Hodges adds increasingly emphatic percussion until the song comes to a cold stop. Watt and Hodges lock in on \u201cPity Parody\u201d like a jazzier Wire, while Baggetta says what he needs to say with just his guitar, strings bending and buzzing. \u201cIn This Moment\u201d is a lovely way to end the record, a quiet swell with plucked notes, hushed drums and cymbal wash, and slowly cascading bass. Baggetta adds western poetry, desert imagery that intertwines with the music\u2019s pelagic feel. Well, you know what they say; if you like the sea you\u2019ll probably like the desert. It\u2019s the big horizons, and the horizon feels very big as Hodges snare sounds something like waves breaking on the shore as Human Reaction<\/i> fades to a close.\u00a0 <\/p>\n You know, way back in 1986, when fIREHOSE released their first album, Ragin\u2019 Full On<\/i>, a song called \u201cRelatin\u2019 Dudes To Jazz\u201d contained the line, \u201cHow very important, two dudes talking.\u201d The song was specifically referring to drums and sax, but 37 years later I saw three dudes talking with drums, guitar, and bass, and it was also very important. May it ever be so. Check out Human Reaction<\/i> for a piece of the conversation.<\/p>\n<\/pclass=\"msonormal\">\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":34906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10903],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-46773","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mssv","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46773"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}