Gang Gang Dance - "Rawwar" EP

Gang Gang Dance - Nicoman (The Social Registry 2007)

Gang Gang Dance - "Rawwar" EP / The Social Registry

What possesses a man to leap in front of a train? This was the question I was faced with two weeks ago standing on the platform of the Red Line's Granville stop as I watched this very incident occur right before my eyes. Witnessing death like that is a strangely disorienting experience, perhaps because you expect it from Fallujah rather than Fullerton. At my distance, there was nothing I could do to stop him. But I was close enough to feel for him, and I wish I knew more but the investigation was short-lived and the newspapers made scarce mention the next day.

Gang Gang Dance have been mining this same psychological territory since their formation. Not in the literal sense, of course: I doubt Tim DeWitt has consciously created music with the question in mind. But the subtext of salvation lies somewhere deep beneath the Manhattan band's extraordinary amalgam of virtually every known sound to man. In Lizzi Bougatsos's otherworldly vocal performances, one hears the cries of the crowd. Or are those the cries of the jumper in the eight-tenths of a second one has to fly freely?

As I suspect it is elsewhere, Gang Gang Dance draws strong reactions from listeners here. Michael, surprisingly, is not especially fond of them; in contrast, I am still growing and learning and appreciating with their sonically demanding songs on every fresh release. Rawwar is their latest EP, continuing an established tradition of not making full-lengths (excepting God's Money). There is always development in each new release, but at what cost and to what end, even they aren't sure.

Therein lies a fundamental aspect of enjoying this band. You can't expect anything because expectations would defeat the whole point of what this group is trying to do. "Nicoman" is the best example of what you could call a "conventional" Gang Gang Dance sound, twisting and writhing through the quivering yelps of Bougatsos and down dirty streets in every city from Istanbul to Mumbai to Bucharest to the great amalgam of them all, New York City. As a musical melting pot, this group exemplifies all that's great about clashing cultures. "Nicoman" clashes with itself, a violent and vibrant affair that ends in a rush of percussion and Bougatsos, ever the mystic, keeping her words a safe distance from clarity.

"Oxygen Demo Riddim" allows you the proper amount of time to breathe after the typically fraught Gang Gang Dance affair that "Nicoman" is. Its almost Skatebård-like groove also calls to mind another Scandinavian master in Lindstrøm as well, but whomever you may try to pin it on, the result is that its groove does not stay locked in step forever: As it nears its conclusion, the melody feels more panicked and then, suddenly, in a quiet clap of thunder, it's gone. Or maybe that's the rumble of the train.

The final track stands as the EP's ultimate statement, and it's not just because of its length. "The Earthquake That Frees Prisoners" glides in through the stardust for nearly three minutes before arriving in a cacophonous burst of sound Bougatsos, a sampled orchestra and talking presumably by DeWitt all take part in. A poem that somehow involves Muhammed getting stoned doesn't seem like the proper place to draw dots to any kind of salvation, but "The Earthquake That Frees Prisoners" is the sound of Gang Gang Dance at their most driven, their most purposeful, their most coherent: Rather than cluttering up four minutes with dramatically unorthodox time signatures or erratic vocal lines, the band instead choose to let it breathe. As alive as any song they've ever made, you may get your time signature switches and a hint of dub in the mix but ultimately it's you serving yourself as a listener. Gang Gang Dance are mere providers, the manipulated dead to your living receiver, except they are very much alive. They are very much alive and their music is very much alive and they want you to feel that vitality, too. Ultimately, they want you to live.

What possesses a man to leap in front of a train? Somewhere between misfiring synapses and heavy hearts at a total loss for answers to life's cruelest questions, Gang Gang Dance play Rawwar in a desperate attempt to show the alternatives. Upon every platform where this question turns over and over again, the pulse of the EP races rapidly ahead, struggling to be heard in the turmoil. Down every narrow back alley of every major metropolis lies the urban emptiness that drives us to the tracks. In that respect, the raw war of Fullerton is not so different from Fallujah after all.