I always appreciate bands and labels that put an emphasis on physical product. This bizarre offering from Russian progressive rock act Detieti, for example, is housed in a miniature LP sleeve, with each separate part separately shrink-wrapped. It may seem like a small thing, but such attention to detail matters (especially in the notoriously prickly field of progressive rock) and the packaging concept, combined with the artwork and the story printed on the inner sleeve, gives the record a storybook feel that really stands out from the usual, oh-so-serious approach. It’s as well, because the packaging very much matches the atypical content within…
Detieiti have been active for a number of years, forming in 2004 but seemingly not doing much until 2010 when they got round to recording their first demo. The band picked up speed when after the release of their first two albums in 2013 and 2015 respectively, before a line-up change threw a spanner in the spokes. Taking a moment to regroup, the band bought in a new guitar player and set about tracking Frogressive Punk, a kaleidoscopic clash of alternative rock, psychedelic, funk and punk. On paper, it feels like it probably shouldn’t work, but the band’s mix of humour, charm and musicianship carries it off well, although it’s most certainly something of an acquired taste for those whose interests lie in a more linear direction.
The album opens with a fanfare in the form of Cocaintro, a shuffling, psychedelic stew that initially sounds like Gabriel-fronted Genesis on mushrooms before morphing into something else entirely, taking in shades of Sabbath before emerging as a funk workout. Over the course of its eight-minute runtime it darts back and forth, rarely sitting still for long, like a music student with ADHD, and it could arguably do with being trimmed to a more concise length to maintain its impact, but it’s a beguiling start nonetheless. Second track Lazy Madonna, a stuttering funk workout with spacey wah and awkward time signatures, is overlaid with what sounds like the demo track from a Casio keyboard, but don’t let that stand in the way of the oddball rhythm from giving you a panic attack. Maintain your nerve, and you’ll find that the band have added Mr Bungle and Fantomas to their list of influences, the vocals very much in the vein of Mike Patton at his most aggressively deranged. Fortunately, there’s the comical lurch of Rasta Fear, to allow a certain amount of recovery. It’s still utterly bonkers of course, but it’s a cakewalk after the opening pair of tracks and even a digression into the wailing saxophone of free-jazz fails to entirely alienate the listener. Of course, it’s also possible that an element of Stockholm syndrome has set in by this point, and the chicken noises of the song’s second half would be enough to disturb most sentient beings without a significant amount of advanced warning, so perhaps the remainder of the review should be taken with said warning in mind. At any event, The Dream Of Woodland Animals, a short, sweet piece that briefly allows sanity to resume it’s normal course (well, comparatively). It’s a rather lovely piece of music, actually, the sort of thing that might soundtrack a child’s computer game, and its soft edges are suitably dreamy and hypnotic.
Of course, such sensitivity could never last and Murat-Zlurad opens the second half with a mix of awkward noise before segueing into a rumbling funk-psyche workout. Very reminiscent of Fantomas’ unhinged approach, it’s a scattershot piece of music that would tie anyone foolish enough to attempt to dance up in knots. It paves the way for the space-age psyche of Im. Pokh, which filters Syd Barrett-era Floyd through speaker-threatening levels of distortion before devolving into a bizarre finale that, thankfully, does not last long. Happily, things get back on track with the electrifying riff of Diemback, a frantic, punk-infused whiteout that returns to the Fantomas worship of Lazy Madonna. In Latrine (Cocaintro revisited) is short, and strange, replete with random snippets of Russian dialogue and bubbly sound effects. However, the band have saved the best for last as Threeptile proves to be a lengthy, ambitious closer with stinging funk basslines, fx-drenched guitar and a strangely hypnotic undercurrent. To an extent, it’s sort of as you imagine The Orb might sound, should they ever decide to play with traditional instrumentation, although there’s a metallic undercurrent that occasionally burst forth to furthrer disorient the listener. Yet, for all its shifts, Threeptile is unutterably brilliant and worth the price of admission alone. With luck, it will point the way for the next album, because it’s never less than absolutely engrossing for the whole of its eleven-minute runtime.
Detieti tread a fine line here. On the one hand, the band deserve credit for writing and recording exactly what they want to hear, revelling in artistic freedom and marching way beyond the typically perceived boundaries of the genres within which they occasionally deign to work. On the other hand, and this isn’t exactly a criticism so much as a sad reality, there are few who will be willing to take this journey with the band. The musicianship is excellent throughout and the recording, whilst a touch dry, captures everything with impressive weight and clarity, but it’s so utterly deranged, that many will not wish to stay the course, longing for something they can more easily identify from the outset. As such, this impressive effort comes with the warning that it is very much an album for the sonic adventurers out there – the people who long for Piper At The Gates Of Dawn to go further out into the ether and, simultaneously, gain metallic weight – and, for those strange souls, there is much that is rewarding. Resolutely, gloriously uncommercial, Frogressive Funk is utterly unique and a whole lot of fun. 8/10
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