Fokus Musik review of Dédoublement

 

https://fokusmusik.se/william-carlos-whitten-dedoublement/

With his years as leader of the deeply underrated St Johnny in the 1990s and then Grand Mal far behind him, Bill Whitten had reinvented himself as the literary oddball William Carlos Whitten. Whoever let his music into their lives had a slightly more uncomfortable journey than before, but was rewarded on the other hand with an artistry that was as challenging, adventurous as it was entertaining in its twisted and idiosyncratic NYC rock.

Two years ago he took another major step forward with the collaboration Telepaths together with the tightrope walker Diana Crash, with whom he had a falling out over a book while they were waiting for their dryers at a laundromat. A new dimension of Sonic Youth and the naked Teenage Jesus emerged, and was completed on an EP earlier this year. 
Now he is moving back towards his center in the musical pendulum movement again, with an album where Diana Crash is heard everywhere but still has to take a step back from the immediate spotlight. For now, it is William Carlos Whitten who dictates all the terms. 
The epic ‘Song for a Doomed Society’ sets the agenda for an album that ends with the call to ‘Nuke the Servers’, and with ‘A Beautiful, Half Trained Panther’ as a highlight where it throws itself between provocatively suggestive drive and sound collage parts, the distorted doo-wop ballad – at least in some fragments – ‘Anyone but You’ as another. 
Speaking of distortion, fans of The Flying Lizards (and we all belong to that category, don't we?) will especially appreciate the stubborn monotone piano behind the studied monotonous brass in ‘Fragments’ – with a Coltrane-via-Lou-Reed guitar solo as an added attraction, not to mention the title track's almost dance-friendly rhythms that are just waiting for an electro remix. 
‘The Car Crash Invented Rock and Roll’ depicts Eddie Cochran's death with an oddly worded homage, and with a punk-leaning rock'n'roll guitar and mention of Sid Vicious in a loving mythologizing way, and the opening ‘If You Want to Find God Read Books and Go to the Movies’ with "If you want to die young listen to rock'n'roll music" as the other possible alternative, functions as both a program statement and a conclusion for an eccentric whose immersions in the possibilities and risks of culture continue to be a true source of joy.