OLD-Lo Flux Tube (1991)

OLD-Lo Flux Tube (1991)

“It's a blast to watch. It's a lot more interesting live than it is on record. I mean, it really is a theatrical event. It's a sporting event! Cause you never know what's gonna happen.”

John Zorn

Ghost Writer

I bet you not so many people put the proper attention to OLD's track Colostomy Grab Bag on the legendary Earache's Grindcrusher sampler, of course, don’t worry, at the time I was madly in love with Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, Carcass and Entombed, I was very familiar with them, so for me Grindcrusher was more a chance to meet new bands and get a hold of the more experimental sounds Earache was starting to develop.

One of the bands I was able to know via Grindcrusher, was New Jersey's highly experimental OLD (acronym for Old Lady Drivers), a band that featured really amazing broad mind musicians, starting with the great guitarist-producer James Plotkin, a guy that really knows how to make his guitar sound out of this world, along with Plotkin, there was madman Alan Dubin, a terrific vocalist capable of peeling the paint from the wall with his twisted shriek, Dubin would continue to collaborate with Plotkin in the more popular Khanate, with members of Sunn O))), among other things, and let’s not forget the third member in this amazing band, a man with a strange history known as Jason Everman, then a little known bass player who might be envied by many, as he was also, for a short time the bass player in Nirvana and Soundgarden before both bands broke big (he played on Bleach and on the Louder Than Love tour) and here he was obviously making a more drastically type of noise.

For the amazing Lo Flux Tube, their 1991 recording, OLD was already becoming an outstanding experimental band, out step with American Death Metal or with British Grindcore, believe me, at the time they weren't toying with grindcore anymore, in fact, they were embracing many other things like Japanoise, hardcore punk, prog rock and heavy industrial music, at times sounding like Godflesh, Keiji Haino, Rush and Voivod all rolled into one big musical mind fuck.

I guess at that time no band in Earache sounded like OLD, of course, there was Godflesh with their drum machine, who were obviously an antecessor to OLD´s stuff, but Plotkin and company were taking industrial and prog rock to places never heard before, with crazy drum programming all over the mix, Dubin insane vocal attack and Plotkin dissonant guitars wailing everywhere, yes, it was a brutal attack impossible not to ignore, and if all that wasn't enough, there was a man known as John Zorn providing guidance during the recording, Mr. Zorn was at the time starting to display an affinity for heavy music beyond free jazz, as he was not only working at the time with Mick Harris from Napalm Death on Naked City and on Painkiller (with Bill LaswellI) but he was also acting as a producer on Mr. Bungle major label debut, amazing!

In Lo Flux Tube what you get was the incredible straight hardcore of Outlive, and that, from starters is a brutal and unstoppable piece, the musical crazy flame thrower Disconnect Self, Citient Null might be a really weird piece with piercing guitar lines by Plotkin, the title stellar title track with Zorn in his most crazed sax solo, and let's not forget the creepy Vein Water and the outstandingly catchy Marzuraan.

Obviously Lo Flux Tube is a pretty indigestible record for beginners, it's ugly, dissonant and abstract, at the time it was surely to be dismissed by many, too heavy for the prog and arty guys, too weird for the grindcore crowd, but now a days with many bands exploring similar stuff going to the extremes, it's a good time to get ourselves a change to re immerse in such a game changing record and watch our mind getting changed forever.