Pitchfork

There are plenty of bands vying for shares of your attention-- bands competing to the be the loudest, the fastest, the boldest, the most visible. Damo Suzuki's Network is not among them. This live recording from Finland's Jyrock Festival in April 2003 prioritizes a dogged persistence above flash, slow immersion above quick accessibility-- its 50-odd minutes of unbroken, thematically repeating music sits dauntingly in one long track. 3 Dead People After the Performance isn't interested in winning you over; instead, it asks for a commitment.

This isn't surprising coming from ex-Can frontman Damo Suzuki, whose music has always rewarded the long haul more than the sprint. This seems like a continuation of Can's Krautrock legacy, although it's really more of an attenuation-- while the long and fluidly shifting rhythmic and melodic lines are intact, Suzuki is no longer pushing at the boundaries of sonic acceptability. And while Can incorporated electronic music and dub into their languorous rock deconstructions, Damo Suzuki's Network seems to have nostalgically regressed into the rock idiom-- guitars, drums, bass, and vocals are the entire palette here. The music moves like a pendulum, swinging in an ever-increasing arc; the pendulum spinning hypnotically like a golden pocket-watch the size of a wrecking ball. You have to want to get into it; it's not going to do a little soft-shoe for you. As mentioned above, it rewards commitment.

And what does this commitment disgorge? It disgorges gruff, unflashy vocals that mostly stay within the same murky register, reiterating melodic patterns throughout this register like a rudimentary signature. There's a garage-rock warmth to Suzuki's vocals, but their regularity bends them toward the robotic, and when he occasionally drops into a Cookie Monster croak, we're reminded, counterintuitively, of his humanity. It disgorges an athletic rhythm section that seethes and pulses with a minimum of fuss, the compact thrust amplifying the music's sense of inexorability. It disgorges rock guitars that move seamlessly between searing and cooling, between cerebral finagling and rude skronk, but rarely noodle. Indeed, for a record that sounds so excessive on paper, 3 Dead People After the Performance is the model of restraint, conveying its incantatory, slowly-unfolding force with the lightest gestures. If it lacks Can's visionary dishevelment, it bears all the marks of a musician decades at his craft-- quiet confidence and effortless poise.