Nothing Band-Descension/Digestion; Decoherence Records 2018

If you've to it, flaunt it, and if by "it" you mean a determinedly d.i.y. ethic paired with personalized aesthetic prowess, then Oakland California based musician and artist Max Nordile certainly does. Over the past three or four years, Disaster Amnesiac has watched, amazed, as Max has put on shows, put out product, hit the road, and just generally been a driving force, pushed along by his own clear energies. Nordile seems to always have something cooking.  
Descension/Digestion, from Nothing Band, is one of a few such works that he has thrown my way for listening to.
Described as a two part concept album, this recording by what sounds to me like a trio features a group sound that is made up of short, sharp blasts of primal Blues-inflected Garage Punk Rock. The group swings together with the kind of unique vision that, to my mind, shows them as having put in a lot of effort at some type of rehearsal pad. Nothing Band feature rattling guitar riffs paired with clipped bass notes, both pushed by clattered drums and and occasional alto sax honk, all evincing the kind of "fuck everybody" singularity, in terms of their sounds, that all bands should aspire to. The bio blurb on the Bandcamp page for Digestion mentions No Wave, and, indeed, Nothing Band do achieve that coveted effect of, to paraphrase Lydia Lunch, an urban laundry mat in full motion. Atop the racket, Max recites his personal stories in scraggedly way that suggests off-handed insights and perhaps a fair amount of frustration with....something. It's to his credit that these lines remain somewhat obscure; they leave a lot to the imagination, entirely a good thing. Disaster Amnesiac feels very certain that Policy Wonks, however, is the best dis song that I've heard in a minute.
Fourteen songs clocking in at a concise twenty minutes or so, this one's perfect for post-work day's end head cleaning. Stay tuned for more observations of music generously shared by Max Nordile, but Disaster Amnesiac will likely be spending the next couple of days letting Descension/Digestion scrape off the lower regions of my cranium.