Are You Excrements?

Are you excrements? That is a credible question as far as the guys from CSSO are concerned. But that’s what happens when your level of insanity is left unchecked for too long. CLOTTED SYMMETRIC SEXUAL ORGAN are a grind band, you see. They run a lengthy discography overwhelmingly consisting of a colorful assortment of various split releases with who-is-who of the international grindcore scene, from NASUM and MEATSHITS to HAEMORRHAGE, DEAD INFECTION and MALIGNANT TUMOUR. Curiously, there is no split record with AGATHOCLES, which I find a bit odd. Didn't AGATHOCLES do a split with just about everyone and their grandma? All that, however, does not prevent CSSO from periodically turning their noses to the left-of-center and unexpectedly churning out something like the subject of this review. One look at the album's cover, song titles like "Cosmic Super Strong Ordure" or "Diversion Of Former Customary Trite Composition," and the actual number of songs (six), and it becomes painfully obvious that somewhere (in this case Japan) the shit hit the proverbial fan yet again.

With this record CSSO become yet another one of those eccentric bands, which Japan seems to be infested with, who take any given musical genre and try to turn it on its head while in the process messing with minds of the unsuspecting listeners. If one were to go by this album alone, it could very well be concluded that this band have been locked away their entire lives with nothing to listen to but 70’s rock and psychedelia. When the band have finally come out isolation and started getting ready to record an album, someone happened to toss several contemporary grindcore records their way along with maybe a "japanoise" album or two, after hearing which the band went into the state of shock and suffered a case of temporary amnesia. When they eventually came back to their senses, things remained a little hectic inside their heads, but the guys decided to go into a studio anyway and record an album, which became known as "Are You Excrements?"
Psychedelic-grind-noise-rock is how one might define this music on the spot. Songs range from three to twelve minutes in length, on the course of which the band rock, roll, make noise, growl, shift gears every which way, using funk rhythms and jazzy syncopation to unhinge things even further and generally park their spaceship wherever they damn please. At the end, it all leaves you a slightly perplexed and disoriented, despite the band's fairly organic sound, but not at all in an unpleasant way, although that might ultimately depend on how broad-minded the listener is.

The opener "Cosmic Super Strong Ordure" blasts off with some seriously psychedelic guitar ligatures and spaced out noise, distortion pedals and keyboard effects intact, not unlike ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE, before degenerating into a deep groove rock and finally into a full-throttle grind whirl. "Living Dead a Go Go" is a twelve minute long acid trip - so many things are crammed in that space. The boys start off with some good ol' head-shaking boogie rock, which turns into stoner psychedelic rock, which turns into guitar noise and feedback, which turns into delicately atmospheric spacey drone, which then slowly makes its way back to the boogie psychedelia, but not without a few grind excursions. End of the route. "Worst" indulges CSSO's grind-rock persona and does quite a bit of rocking out, but not without the mandatory psychedelic layering somewhere in the middle. "Diversion of Former Customary Trite Composition" is quite a ten minute workout. It starts, predictably enough, with more boogie-grind, but by the time the song's second half comes around, the band whisks away into a rather dreamy nether realm, ascending its psychedelic ladder right up until its eventual implosion by a final, momentous grinding burst. "Mental Rape #1/#2" alternates between more psychedelic splurge and what is a basic methodical gradation between straightforward rock, punk and grind with an ever-present yelling vocals. This track appears to be the less interesting piece on the record, even if it is similar enough to "Worst". These two shorter tracks play a double role of somehow connecting and keeping together the vast open seas of psychedelics and grooves while paying the most lip service to the band's grind roots. The title track and the final number on the record turns out to be another gorgeous, semi-improvised psychedelic rumination that is, again, very similar to A.M.T.. It builds up beautifully for almost ten minutes only to break apart into a swarm of feedback and disappear into a nebulous faraway.

I suppose this is one of those records where a whole is bigger than many of its parts, even if its diversity is sometimes both the album's strength and weakness. When the band is merely throwing many ingredients into a pot, this album's approach is not terribly different from many other works from bands who generally like to "combine things". During those moments, disparate segments await their turn and then supersede one another, periodically interspersing, coming together and falling apart. Within the album's setting many of them function fairly well but would be pedestrian on their own. That goes particularly for many of the grind-rock parts. Thankfully, the cut-and-paste approach does come in handy because here it tends to elevate the weaker links. Moreover, CSSO do not thrive on cut-and paste approach alone and did not feel the need to over-saturate their canvas. As a grind band, they most certainly felt the necessity to play around with much broader strokes as opposed to creating a clutter. The sizable influence of psychedelic space rock does require a lot of, ahem, space. As a result, there are just enough sections that are allowed to take their time to grow a little, where listeners can simply unwind or at least slow down, as long as they know that the band will be coming around at them again with all the noise.

CSSO have largely succeeded in what they set out to do on "Are You Excrements?", and it is certainly a recommended listening. Even though the record is not quite a masterpiece, the band members were probably having too much fun to really care, which is all good and well. At the very least, this should be heard as an instance of a grind group boldly going where no grind group has gone before.