False Flag is the first recorded collaboration between three of the premier players on the alternative music circuit: guitarists Sir Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny, and drummer Chris Corsano. Now a solo artist, Bishop spent over twenty five years recording with his brother Alan as the Ethnic-improv duo Sun City Girls. Chasny is a member of Santa Cruz psych-rockers Comets On Fire, but his primary concern is his folky solo project Six Organs Of Admittance. Corsano is a world-renowned free percussionist who has worked with Vibracathedral Orchestra, Thurston Moore, Keiji Haino and Bjork among others. Naming themselves after a child-eating Balinese demon queen, the trio finally convened after years of planning in late 2009 and recorded this album the day after playing their first improvised show together.
Brief opener “Waldorf Hysteria” bursts out with all guns blazing, Chasny and Bishop tearing trebly surf licks and thrashing metallic squall from their guitars while Corsano unleashes a series of thunderous drum rolls on every corner of his kit. The following “Bull Lore” recalls some lost Morricone theme, as tackled by Mogwai or Godspeed! You Black Emperor, and whilst the twanging guitars are evidently rooted in spaghetti westerns, it’s doomy minor-key atmospherics and creeping pace suggest a lucrative possible future for the group scoring horror movies.
“Fist Family” is essentially a showcase for Corsano. Sure, it begins with both guitars squalling in unison like police sirens, but from the moment Corsano enters the fray it’s all about the drums. Previously known to inventively incorporate anything from gamelan percussion to saxophone mouthpieces into his playing, on False Flag Corsano is limited to a regular kit, but that doesn’t prevent him making as much noise as a man with twice his number of limbs. Arms and legs flailing in all directions, the drummer rolls unrelentingly for over seven minutes; it’s as impressive as it is raucous.
“Sarcopagi” and “Serrated Edges” demonstrate the polar opposites of the group’s sound; the former is probably the album’s most linear track, a mournful guitar duet (with Corsano demonstrating surprising restraint in his gentle brush-work) that builds to an emotional climax. The latter is a harsh, stop-start affair described pretty accurately by it’s title. It breaks down halfway through into a Derek Bailey-inspired mess of harmonics and metallic string scraping, before crashing back into overdriven noise.
Fifteen minute closer “Plain Of Jars” starts off as a more meditative, eastern style raga, fluttering guitars weaving together like the Tom Verlaine/Richard Lloyd partnership that illuminated Television’s Marquee Moon, or something from the Live/Dead album. Five minutes in, someone breaks the spell with a minor chord and for a moment, everything teeters on the edge of collapse until the group suddenly slip back into the original key. The finale of the piece contains the album’s only reminder of the precarious nature of live improvisation: a single descending guitar riff emerges, and the second guitar joins in momentarily before dropping suddenly out of the mix, as if unsure what to do. Corsano also struggles to find a rhythm or pace to match, and ends up just soloing wildly, with the other guitar following suit; eventually they share a psychic moment and fall back together for an all too brief reprise. It’s a fitting end to such a wildly unpredictable display of three elementally impressive talents.
