Pitchfork

I'd venture to say that sunburn-brained Houstonian Mayo Thompson's last essential contribution to modern music was his lead guitar work on a few early '80s Pere Ubu albums, and maybe his 1994 collaboration with disciples Jim O'Rourke and David Grubbs on a surprisingly stunning guitar album. Unfortunately, on this reissue of 1989's Malefactor, Ade, Thompson comes off like a senile, Depends-sporting old coot goofing off in his nursing home suite. Red Krayola circa 1967? Nah, not really. Drop the "K," add a "C," and what do you get? Thompson farting around under the ostensible guise of that influential Dadaist underground institution he helped found, like, 170 years ago.

Naturally, this incarnation of Red Crayola features a backing band that consists of severe Deiter-like German types. These goofy Kraut noise-makers assist Thompson in bringing forth his garbled musical vision: there's plenty of ridiculously off-beat drumming, maybe a few programmed beats here and there, and someone's bass burps occasionally. Certainly, this is apt nonsensical backing music for Thompson's nonsensical lyric-writing and palsied guitar strumming. Every once in awhile, classical-sounding backward tape loops flutter about like so much discarded newspaper caught in a breeze. And with songs covering such insightful topics as frogs that resemble baby Jesus, auto- mechanical sex, dead actors' gardens, coasters, and blue jeans, what's to love?

The anti-campfire singalong, "Bluejeans," is an annoying pseudo-post-modern exercise in stupidity-as-art: "BLOO-jeans," Thompson insists. "BLOO-jeans!! Ahaaha!" "Colour Theory No.4" features more incoherent acid-trip lyrics over an off-center drumbeat and tinkling jack-in-the-box music. "TB\x97Tissues" is, more or less, 2\xBD minutes of repeated sounds that resemble a power drill boring a hole into a piece of scrap metal. Again, I'm at a loss as to what the expected reaction to this should be. Laughter? Paralysis? A sudden urge to part with $15 to further the Red Crayola cause?

In Thompson's case, when true creativity fails, you abuse your instruments in song and play up the fact that you're an incoherent freak. Lo and behold, you'll get away with musical murder, since most indie rock aesthetes won't be able to differentiate between Ornette Coleman's abstract expressionist genius and the mindless clutter that wastes digital space on Malefactor, Ade.

Though, remarkably, on "Franz Von Assisi," we do get an honest-to-goodness chord progression-- undercut, of course, by the sound of mechanical ducks quacking in the background. And towards the end of this disordered sound- universe, we're offered a few more tracks with no particular musical value: we get ejaculations of backward-looped Hitchcock-ian soundtrack music, and a song that features a single note bassline underpinning the occasional fractured tape segment, with atonal piano plinking and bleep noises comparable to a confused R2-D2.

Still, Thompson has proved he has the talent and ability to far surpass this pedestrian experimental junk. Blame Malefactor, Ade on the lack of a voice of reason amongst the many jabbering in his head. But hey, he's an established rock deity in certain circles, so it's no sweat getting the arbiters of Chicagoan cool at Drag City to re-release an album that anyone's Alzheimer-ridden grandparents could make if they were given a budget and proper recording facilities. Again, though, someone somewhere will find a use for this non-music. If you have a nasty bug problem in your apartment, try keeping Malefactor, Ade on medium volume at all times. Cockroaches, no matter how hungry, won't even think about venturing out into the open.

For the hell of it, why not bring this, Old Time Relijun's Uterus and Fire and Sonic Youth's NYC Ghosts and Flowers to the next neighborhood hipster party you're forced to attend. Bully your way to the disc changer, drop these choice selections in, and hit "shuffle." Though everyone in attendance will suffer extraordinary auditory discomfort, no one will dare protest your selections. In fact, you may end up becoming the most popular, yet secretly-hated enigma on your block.