Preening

 

picture by Survivor Sound

 

 Preening is hailing from Oakland, California, and has been around for some time now as they started in 2016.

Preening is Alejandra (Blues Lawyer, Naked Roommate) on bass and vocals, Sam on the drum stool (he also played drums in Warm Soda and Penny Machine and on Flesh World's Into The Shroud LP) and Max (Uzi Rash, Wet Drag, The Trashies, Violence Creeps, The Blues but also some more experimental solo projects with Hair Clinic and Vying For The Dime) who plays the saxophone and sings.

Yes Preening is a bass / drums / saxophone trio. 

 

They've been called no-wave (The Contortions ?) and even free-jazz (Blurt ?) sometimes but to me, with this kind of line-up and sound, the obvious comparison is Lucrate Milk. Ok let's say a less-crazy-and-without-keyboard version of Lucrate Milk but Lucrate Milk nevertheless. So, just for you to be warned, in case you're allergic to chaotic and arty French punk, I am going to mention Lucrate Milk a lot in this text (I mean, even more than I already did).

 

 

  Recorded in 2016 and released in 2017, this 9-track tape called Plaza Demo is the very first record of the band and immediately registered it in the outside-the-box punk band box (if I may say). The songs' structures are all quite similar but effective, as Max can't blow his horn and sings at the same time (some have tried but...), Alejandra builds up the beginning with a hopping bass line, before the "distorted" saxophone jumps in and Max drops some short, repetitive sentences. And Alejandra sings as well. 

 

  And damn I can't help it, I hear Lucrate everywhere! Don't get me wrong it's a cool comparison, so yes there is a strong weird-early-anarcho-punk vibe in Preening, which is cool as well!

 

Oh and Big Big Brain makes me think of this No Means No song (for obvious and mostly non-musical reasons).

Demo Again was released a few months later, as a tape as well.

If I understand right, these tracks were recorded in march 2017, rerecorded for most of them actually as five out of the six songs were already on Plaza demo, so I assume the band was not happy with the result or felt that they had improved enough to justify a new recording session. The difference is not striking to be honest but yes the quality is better, it sounds more powerful, cleaner and the songs got more energy (and we can actually hear the drums now).

SO I guess that this second demo should be considered as the band's debut release.

And it's a good one! I am not gonna go through the Lucrate comparison all over again, you got it now. The "new" track (there was only a 46s draft version on Plaza), Bite The Sash, is actually quite interesting as it's a bit different, yes the saxophone still bursts delirious madness all over the place but there is also a slower, heavier background which gives an almost-noise-rock vibe... It's definitely a different style but it makes come to mind Hit Cap by Giddy Motors.

 

Only one month after the release of the second demo (in august 2017), Preening drop Beeters, their first vinyl record, a 4-track 7" out on Digital Regress. The songs comes from the same March 2017 recording session as Demo Again. Big Big Brains makes a deserved comeback, as well as Plaza Scare (both were on the first demo) and two new kids make their entrance.

Beeters opens the show and sums up beautifully all the band's concept in a great, very powerful and quite catchy track. Ok Lucrate Milk all over the place etc... you got it now we said! I feel that overall Alejandra sings more (mainly backing vocals) on this EP and it gives a strong early British anarcho punk to the whole thing. Yes I haven't mentioned it yet but there is of course a serious bit of Crass, and maybe Poison Girls, in the background of it all.

 

I finally understand that the march 2017 recording session was quite prolific.

This 5-track EP (out on ever / never records) is another (and the last!) "result" of the 2017 Left Field Studios session. Indeed I totally understand why the trio decided to not release everything at once but rather piece by piece, it gives free hands to focus on shows and new songs while keeping an "alive" discography (smart move). A total of 14 tracks were released between Greasetrap Frisbee, Demo Again and the other 7".

  

Two "old" songs from the Plaza Demo and three new ones, it's a balanced mix I would say.

Poison is more quiet, less "hopping" (and slightly longer as wall) than the old tracks, there is more of this noise-rock / experimental vibe I could feel in Bite The Sash and that I find really interesting. Same with Face On which manages to mix the anarcho punk influence (that Alejandra-only vocals make really vivid here) with this slower, more subtle "new" atmosphere.

Two of the best Preening songs so far (in my humble opinion).

With this third 7" Preening delivers what is probably their most arty and dis-musical (you know what I mean) production until then. Released on Fine Concepts in mid-2018, Nice Dice is composed of four new tracks recorded in may 2017 in Oakland and the difference between this new recording session and the one from march is huge.

Ok I will pass quickly on the fact that this song AND this video are OBVIOUSLY making me think a lot of Lucrate Milk (once again) and their frantic, Dadaist, surrealist and absurd videos (check out this recap of their DVD).

Indeed the trio is pushing the "no-wavish" concept a step further: CPD's "give it back, it makes no sense" stands as the leitmotiv spine of this perfect anti-pop song, Effigy (a shorter version of the Demo again one?) and Fascist Flecks are even "worse", reducing the idea of song structure to a cubic painting whereas Sister Corridor Oases got a more "classic" Preening song construction (hopping bass line + ducky-ish sax). 

 

So I would says that this 7" is not the most accessible of all Preening's releases so far, but it offers a very good example of the band's capacity to offer something "different" while fine-tuning a now well-established concept. And that renews my interest even more.

 

 

Moving from a short to a long format is a risky challenge for a band like Preening, which frantic disorder fits well a 7" but can become tiring, or even worse, boring, on a full album.

Well I have to say I am extremely, and pleasantly, surprised by Gang Laughter, the full length challenge taken up with flying colours by the trio. 

Back on Digital Regress (that they had left after Beeters), Preening delivers ten tracks of subtle, well-built and more jazzy than ever, no-wave punk. Indeed it's been almost two years since their last recording and it's obvious that everyone is more comfortable with his or her instrument.

 

 

  Going easy on the frantic sax and slowing down on the hopping bass lines, the band reaches a more "melodic" aspect of their music that is more suitable to the LP format, less raw, less "punk", more arty maybe but more suitable for sure. It may only be because I have discovered this Japanese band very recently, but I feel like there is something of Daisuck & The Prostitutes in this new side of Preening, and I like it.

 

 

  But don't get me wrong, the "old" band is not dead: Dogtown Top Ranking, Slabs, Durango R or even Water Closet to a lesser extent are here to make it clear, but even those sound more mature, quieter... being the result of years of practice. You can also feel that the trio is happy to (successfully) explore unpaved ways:

There is the surprising interlude of Gang Laughter with its "bells" or xylophone I don't know but also the "long" Pillow Case which mixes pinches of "synth space noises" with an obsessive pattern recalling early Nick Cave's music. And it's almost too early, while we are finally settled in the album, that the end track, the absurd Everything is a T-shirt, beautifully concludes this wonderful achievement by a very balanced mix between the "old" and the "young" Preening, fading away in a jazzy but powerful saxophone melody...

 

Good job! 

 

 

 

 

 Almost two years later, Preening is back with Dragged Through The Garden, a new 9-track LP recorded in two sessions in 2019, out on Ever/Never this time (like the Greasetrap Frisbee 7").

  From the first minutes of this new full length it feels like Preening picks up exactly where they left off at the end of Gang Laughter. Preening is still Preening, the mature band that had already displayed the full extent of their talents all along their previous LP.

 

 

  It starts as expected with Barn KP and No Season which take us without any surprise into the, now well mastered, world of hopping anarcho punk / no-wave with saxophone. It slows down a bit with Economy Head where the saxophone slowly takes off before reaching a plateau of all-together vocals but in my opinion it's really with Twinning that we really get into the core of the band's formula. Dual vocals, insane soaring saxophone parts, long "breaks"... no wonder it's one of the longest track of the album, the band took the time to push the whole concept a bit further... which is great!

 

 

  After Twinning's "launch pad" to sky high excitements, Red Red Lava paraglides us back to earth, acting like a noisy background interlude, before the band fully resumes to their powerful formula with the three following tracks: Autocon, You Gave It Away and Rapt Fashion. 

 

But it's really the very last track, the 4:30-long Extortion, which offers a hypnotic finale composed of long electronic sequences, diverse and offbeat noises... something I can picture as a David Lynch sound film. It recalls a bit what the trio had tried with Pillow Case on Gang Laughter, but longer and more "extreme". Described as a "Human-Eastman Dub" I suppose that this track was "built" on the spot with both sound engineers but I wish the trio would keep digging that direction...

 

So yes Dragged Through The Garden is a good album, it's the expected successor of Gang Laughter. And I'm sure everybody will be delighted by these nine tracks and it's a really good release to start with if you're not too familiar with the band discography.

But that's probably precisely why I'm a little disappointed, Preening has already demonstrated on several occasions its ability to explore stranger, longer, more inaccessible areas and that's what I expect from them now, to be to their past selves what PIL was to the Sex Pistols...

 

 

You can listen to Preening on Rien à Faire #19.

 

 

 

 

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