Been waiting for this one! Are there really 2 studio albums from Science Friction??

That's a good question. I was thinking of the two prior recordings with Taborn and Rainey, "Shell Game" and "Science Friction." I think they are both studio releases. Ducret does play only on two of the three, though. So, depending on what actually constitutes this band...

I'd say they're different bands. The trio with Taborn was called Hard Cell, I think.

In a way, Science Friction is just a mashing together of the Hard Cell trio and the Big Satan trio (with Ducret). On the first (screwgunrecords) album, the SF quartet didn't really sound like either of those trios. Less open and ragged -- more intricate, busy, shiny and produced. In fact, one of the most interesting things about the album was its warped, almost R'n'B slickness. It actually sounds kind of perverted.

I'm intrigued by what the production sounds like on the live record. Does it have have the same kind of post-production glossiness?

Maybe not *quite* to the level of the studio releases, but it's pretty glossy. Torn was involved again.

FWIW, I think the heavy Taborn influence is what makes these bands different from other Berne projects. For that reason, the three records I mentioned are, IMHO, more like each other than any of them is like any other Berne recording.

Re: heavy Taborn influence

I'm pickin up what you're layin down. Taborn defintely brings something special to Berne's world -- from throbbing color and groans to breaking-glass textures and a new, amorphous kind of bassiness.

Distinguishing form from content is always questionable w/r/t music, but I'm still gonna do it. I think that both Hard Cell and bloodcount (early 90's, jmt days) establish a comparable sense of space in their tunes, though Hard Cell is obviously less "chamberish". Hard Cell has more of a dark funk inflection, due to Taborn's keys. But they both share that 'tension-more tension-slight release-more tension-and then it's over' kinda thing that Berne excels in. I.e., tons of sprawl with intermittent chugga-chugga-chugga parts. Also, they both exude a kind of 'heavy-duty-ambience' that suits the compositions -- albeit an 'ambience' that routinely gets shredded into pieces. (I'm stuggling for diction.) They also both have re-ally long tunes.

The first Science Friction, otoh, seemed more way more poppy, less sprawling -- at least in the 'heads' of the tunes. More tight, less loose. The songs are way shorter (nothing over 13 minutes), and the disk scoots along, track to track, from "rocker" to "ballad" -- sequenced like a freakin pop album (well, maybe in an alternate universe). And, in lieu of 'ambience', a jarring, piercing kind of 'inter-penetration of sounds' is foregrounded. (God, semantics are so finnicky). Compared with both Hard Cell and Bloodcount, the grooves on the first Science Friction album are less drawn-out-agonizing, and more busy-perverse (attributions meant in a good way).

I don't know what kind of influence Taborn brings to Berne's projects. I can only try to gauge it from albums, not shows or conversations. It's probably a lot. I don't know. But it seems to me that the REAL qualitative shift in Berne's catalogue is *after* Hard Cell's "Shell Game", not *at* it. In other words, Hard Cell made me go "yeehaw, this is a great variation on that crazy Berne fun, and it has a great new guy to look out for, too", whereas Science Friction made me go "what the FUH?".

Anyways, this post is real nerdy. I'm excited to hear the new Science Friction double album because I can't predict how the aching bloodcount epic-ness (long tunes) will intersect with the crunching avant-weirdness of Science Friction.

Btw, are there any nausea inducing Ducret solos? I hope so.

Interesting post, dbr. Your perspective certainly makes a good deal of sense: I just don't know if the lines are so bright. It may be worth mentioning that one of the tunes on "The Sublime And" is called "Shell Game" and that a couple of the long tunes on it are actually medleys consisting of two or three smaller pieces tied together.

BTW, I love Ducret's vertigo-inducing abilities too.

I just got this in yesterday's mail and am playing it as I type. I enjoyed The Shell Game, but my favorite piece on that was the shortest one. I think Berne goes on for way too long way too often, and this double disc is, to my ear, hideously bloated, drifting from semi-enjoyable avant-jazz-funk to pseudo-harmolodic wanking, and never making it back. The one thing I do like is Ducret's guitar, which is noisy/ugly in a very unique way. It's hard to find a new way to make the guitar sound offensive, but Ducret has definitely done it. I'd like to hear more of his work, but this album is too sprawling to keep my interest.

As I said, sometimes a long cigar isn't "epic"--it's just a long cigar.

After listening to this for a month or so, I'd say that the earlier studio album is way punchier sounding and better, imo.

However, "hideously bloated" is a bad way to describe this set. In all this bloat, my boat still floats. It's just that these songs don't sound better when they're medleyized, stretched out and jammed all over. They sound better when the instruments are punching each other in the face, in a brawl for elbow-room to get a squeak out, i.e., they sound better on the studio album.

The stretching-out thing that made bloodcount's chamber-funk so magical, to my ears, makes Science Friction sound a little bit too sleazy. Berne and Chris Speed's reeds brought a skewed, delightful sense of loathing to the ass-shaking parts of bloodcount. Compositional structure never seemed to come quite into focus: motifs were bluntly stated but their development was purposely crippled, their fruition only insinuated; crass blocks of musical genre were set up but never allowed to stabilize into gestalt firmness. The music felt grand but also handicapped, and I always thought of bloodcount as something somehow both sublime and damaged.

The synth-funk parts of Science Friction are not as pleasing, I think, when given so much room to spread and throb around. Somehow the mix of keys and alto blend into something that, to my ears, sounds at one moment too earnest and at the next, too contrived. It's as if the slickness of the instrumentation gives the compositions an edge that they don't benefit from. The vibe is so vibed out that it's overkill. As bracing as some of the sax-lines are, in this context they almost seem farking mellifluous! In the past, chewing the gristle of Berne's albums was part of enjoying the meat. On this one the grit is gone and the meat's too sweet.

I still think this quartet is dynamite, though. I was blown away by the tight, scrappy, short tunes on the earlier album on Screwgun. Though this one gets my thumbs up, if you really want to be knocked out by sick funk, the first one is the one to check out.

By the way: can't wait for the upcoming acoustic Big Satan on thirsty ear.

Excellent review, donnybird! Now where the hell's that piece on "Sadhana"?