Henri

Lotuseaters (Action Box)
by Jessica Rylan

The press sheet, which I’m not inclined to take seriously since I caught three typos on my first reading of it, says that “Henri is a rare mix of Musicians’ Musicians with the daring to go wherever their imagination takes them and the chops to get there in style.” Kids who go to music school and studio hacks talk about “chops.” It always makes me think of guitarists using Roland Chorus amps, their axes slung at neck level, perhaps so that if someone shoots at them for being annoying pretentious fucks, their axe will double as a bullet-proof vest. Sure enough, the third track features a guitar so chorused-out I had to grit my teeth to get through it, which is particularly tragic because it’s one of the only truly imaginative songs on the CD. The guitar starts out playing in five, over a simple drum beat in four. Then an amazingly full bass drone oozes in underneath. But the guitarist suddenly decides to show off his “chops,” and kicks in with the chorus. So unfortunate. This clown is also credited as producer. And his bad taste as a producer started grating on my nerves even before his bad taste as musician. The second track, “What Does That Mean?,” is a spoken word piece featuring Molly Cleator. She manages to pull off being neurotic and annoying, but still endearing. Unfortunately, the “backing” music has nothing to do with her text. Smokey fits in Cleator’s voice by simply pulling the band’s faders down. At the end of her monologue, the band suddenly pops back up. That’s the kind of production Death Angel did themselves when they were 16. (“I’m Bored.”) The kids these days just leave everything up so the tape gets saturated. It sounds a little more organic at least. None of the other spoken word texts are as successful as Cleator’s, and they all suffer from the same kind of musical disjointment and inexplicable production. The instrumentals on the disc are mostly mid-tempo Dixieland and blues-influenced rambles. There are occasional moments when the band comes close to imitating the kind of know-nothing blues jam brilliance that Jandek often stumbles across, but on the whole, Henri is uninspired. All the Musicians [sic] on this CD are backing hacks. Touring and recording credits include Tom Waits, Jonathan Richman, Natalie Merchant, and Johnny Cash. When a bunch of session players decide to form a band, What Does that Mean?