REYNOLS

The Bolomo Mogal F Hits

CD / Audiobot

The Reynols are a strange band, to say the least. Stemming from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Anla Courtis, guitarist and “songwriter” has started an unbelievably weird avant-rock band that defies all usual labels or classifications. Okay, there is the fact that the drummer and singer has Down Syndrome or Trisomie 21, which means he is a mongoloid. Apart from the novelty factor[1] Miguel Tomasin has the advantage of being able to keep a quirky, warbling but steady beat and wail like a tired and distorted banshee through the psychedelic guitar-noodlings and melody deconstructions of the two guitarists in the band as well as wallow in complete noise. And some people think that US Maple are a weird band to behold and watch. Wait up for this one to show up life.

One more word to disabled or mentally handicapped people making music, because I wanted to get rid of this for quite some time, but there never seemed to have been the right moment. In Vienna there is a group that organises mentally handicapped people to play music and that is called the “No Problem”-orchestra. Great idea. Only that – and I have seen them play once – there is one guy with a keyboard, who plays all the instruments you can hear on his multi-functional synthesizer, while about a dozen mentally handicapped kids stand around banging and clapping on various forms of percussion instruments. To make this clear, everyone is making sounds, but the one instrument you’ll hear in the audience is the keyboard. There are drums on stage and congas and so on, but if you hear drums, you’ll hear those of the keyboard-player. The reason seems to be that the kids on stage can’t play any instruments, can’t hold a rhythm or remember the basic structure of their parts.

I would have preferred to listen to the inhibited and freely improvised banging noise of the kids than to the pre-fabricated, poor music coming from the keyboard, but the producers obviously won’t let me. To me, that is a fraud. To the audience on the one hand, who give money to see handicapped people make music but get handicapped people dressed up and made to do whatever they want and one guy playing keyboards. But, on the other hand, it is also a betrayal of the kids themselves, because they are on stage having a good time, being empowered to think that they are musicians, while in fact they are put into a position that is only a little better than dancing apes. I know, the No Problem orchestra is strictly for charity, but for one, we all that there is always someone earning money with charity, and second, I don’t see the charity-effect here. The audience doesn’t learn that handicapped people can do a lot more than weaving baskets and paint with their thumbs, because the audience is shown that handicapped people can bang on percussion instruments but it is better not to hear them. To make them heard (and skip the keyboard-shit altogether) would have been better both on a caritative level as well as on an artistical level. Miguel Tomasin from the Reynols on the other hand doesn’t look like a dancing ape. Not close. He looks mean and cool. The way everyone wants to be. That is what I call empowerment. As long as he has this band, he won’t need no charity to keep him upright.

Now the music (which is what we are all here for anyway): There is two kinds of tracks on this collection of songs on “The Boloma Mogal F Hits” (whatever that means – I tried but I couldn’t get into the intrinsic humour or theory behind the Reynols). One are long-winding noise-drones, which are either psychedelic and weird or harsh and straight in your face. To other projects that would be more than enough, but for the Reynols the fun starts somewhere else. Because the other kind of songs are quirky, sideways-moving destructions of songs, with almost painful guitar-lines (though there is little actual distortion on them) and weird harmonies. Both, I might say, are about exploring the basics of songwriting or music-making aside from or repelling all restrictions and dogmas heaped upon artists from the classic theory, which would include Burt Bacharach and Leonard Bernstein as well here. Which is where US Maple and their sonic labyrinth comes in, but against the fiendishly constructed and effectious tracks of the Chicagoans, Reynols are more basically primitive and almost tribally natured. Maybe more like Harry Pussy without the artsy-context? I am running out of connotations and comparisons quickly here, which is definitely a good sign. I mean that bands / projects as great as Monno, Hippy Gone Wrong or Iran can try as hard as they might, with all sorts of instruments, gadgets and drugs, but they’ll never reach that level of weirdness and strangeness that seems so easy and natural to the Reynols.