On the one time that Disaster Amnesiac was aware of AIDS Wolf playing near me, there was some kind of schedule conflict on my end that made it so that I could not attend. A dude that I ran frequently with at the time did go to the show, and his assessment was simply "they were cool". If you know or knew S., you'd already be appraised that he's a man of very few words, and his capsule review potentially spoke volumes about his perception of the live AIDS Wolf performance that he'd just seen. It's recalled that the band's reputation for insane, unhinged sets reached far and wide. I'm sad that I didn't ever get to take in an AIDS Wolf show, that's for sure. That being said, AIDS Wolf has remained a band that's listened to often enough in these parts, and the news earlier this year of an archival release of unheard material was received with great enthusiasm. That release is Harsh Human Style, and Disaster Amnesiac has listened to it a lot, especially recently as there were a few days of being able to really blast it at high volume on account of having mi casita to myself while Mrs. Amnesiac was visiting with a pal in a different part of the state. A doom-ey riff kicks off Sixty Eight, one that's paired initially with a pounded snare drum and some kind of vocalized beseeching. The drum kit playing gets gradually more beat centered as singer Chloë Lum joins in with higher register intonations. Eventually drummer Yannick Desranleau pounds the track home and guitarist Alexander Moskos marches along with him. Is Lum singing in a language of her own devising? The players start mixing things up right away on Sixty Nine, an example of less is more as regards the drumming. The guitar makes a cool racket atop the machined hits until everyone decides to battle for the space. Eventually a cowbell-centered groove takes the lead. Disaster Amnesiac can't recall any No Wave with a cowbell, but then again I haven't heard everything that mastering engineer Weasel Walter has produced and presumably he's utilized one at some certain point. Still, that's a first for this fan. AIDS Wolf does their version of straight up Hardcore on Sixty Six. The guitar lines swoop like engines being gunned while the drums scatter and skitter. Lum continues with her surreal chanting as strings bend and twist. This track's wonderfully unbridled guitar performance makes an old blogger smile! Harsh Human Style concludes with Sixty Seven, and it's a big, bold No Wave statement done correct in terms of that genre. This is not to imply that the track is a knock off, for it is not. It's just that as I've listened it's always been clear to me that AIDS Wolf are firmly a No Wave band and a lot of their music has pointedly No Wave gestural figures and that's fine because they did it so incredibly well. Guitar turbulence that melts away in the face of the lyrics, ones that drip with mystery. Some type of hook arises again from the strings as the AIDS Wolf melee groove deepens before it too breaks down for one last time. Chloë's lyrics sound as if she's running down reasons to dislike someone, but that's just conjecture because they're still mostly indecipherable. Finally, some strings echo and the (presumably) final AIDS Wolf statement is over after a mere fifteen minutes or so. Oh how Disaster Amnesiac wishes to have been able to have changed my plans on that evening in 2009 in order to have gotten over to 'frisco and seen them jam out live! Sacre bleu!
