HELLA

Seriously though, I drew this.

There's a bit of pressure to accumulate one's cultural discoveries into a tidy list at the end of every year, quarter, or whatever. I feel like I think about these lists all the time—when I want listen something comforting, when I'm pissed or bummed, or when I listen to music in the van with the boys. But I consistently acquiesce from flushing the list out of my mind and onto the page. Don’t get me wrong, I selfishly love that everyone else scribes these lists, because there’s a lot of writers and websites I respect—and because I haven’t heard more than a small fraction of everything out there, so I like to have some guidance. I’m just the guy hoping those people—namely myself—eventually discover all the stuff that could have made their list but didn’t because they missed it in favor of listening to Silent Shout over and over again. I guess the point of having “favorite” artists means that you make the concession of listening to less music. But frankly, I don't like the idea re-listening to all the shit I've already listened to when I could be scouring the universe for just-as-exciting new shit. It's against the basic principles of Neoism.

That said, one of my favorite things about any year is whatever the wacky founding fathers of Hella—Spencer Seim and Zach Hill—decide to create and release. These two—Sacramento’s finest—mastermind all sorts of coherent noise rock. The first concert I ever saw with my band mate and personal style guru NAVE was Hella’s fifth or sixth show ever. It was in a basement on D Street or E Street in the college town of Davis, CA. In the middle of the third song Mr. Hill kicked through his bass drum and created a new type of false understatement by saying shyly: “Sorry. That’s it.” Of course that was shortly after the night sky parted, God fainted, and the moon melted golden tears of silk that pierced through the roof of the house and the linoleum in the kitchen, illuminating the basement with a shower of the finest light you’ve ever seen, all of which circled safely around Mr. Hill’s suddenly scruffy head. And that’s how Mr. Hill got his hair.

Nave and I may have been new friends, but we’d both studied the same scriptures on musical divinity. We looked at each other and knew: this was it. We weren’t wrong, either. Enjoying Hella is like an evergreen exploration of rock music. For me—and many I know—Hella is a deeply rooted, unusually successful band, timelessly cool and personally experienced. Hella is my favorite active musical act, all plotless adventure and dependable virtuosity. Since touring and collaborating with peopel like System Of A Down, Dillinger Escape Plan, The Locust, and members of Manson and Pinback. That's how Hella have become very popular, perhaps a couple outsider-pop moments away from doing pull-ups with Deerhoof at the Beverly Hills Hotel, waiting for Rolling Stone to finish poolside with Elijah Wood. The magazine asks Mr. Wood what he’s listening to on his new 300 GB iPhone, which, allegedly, Lohan re-gifted him: “There’s this band from Sacramento that most people have never heard...”

Ok, I’m saving the rest of that fantasy for me-time. The point is that Mr. Seim’s and Mr. Hill’s five years of unusual decisions culminate this month when Hella releases its first contractually obligated record for Michael Allan Patton’s Ipecac Recordings label. Mark your calendar if you don’t yet know how to get all your music for free: January 30. The album introduces Hella as a quintet featuring an additional guitar player, a bassist, and a singer that used to be a butcher. It’s titled There’s No 666 In Outer Space. Few albums this year will be as phenomenal or mean as much to me.

I ran into 60% of Hella at Safeway last month (possibly experiencing 60% of the perks of living in Sacramento). It was the affable Mr. Hill, the great bassist Carson McWhirtner, and my old chum Josh Hill, Mr. Hill’s older cousin. Mr. Josh was one of my earliest Sacramento acquaintances. In 2003 or so, he and I geeked around and jammed a couple times at the Hill’s residence in East Sacramento where Mr. Josh and Mr. Hill lived with an uncle. It was just some acoustic diddling that we slowly figured out when we weren’t talking about new bands and old bands and about how Mr. Josh was teaching himself how to use this composition software to program his own orchestra. You know, guy stuff. We actually recorded 50 seconds of material, which you can download a pretty lousy Brilliant MP3 of below. We recorded this the same day Zach gave me a pre-release copy of The Devil Isn’t Red, Hella’s last proper full length. That was a great day.

So, back in Safeway last month, I wasn’t really thinking about it and mentioned that I’d “heard that the album leaked.” Yeah, the Hill’s mumbled. “Bummer,” I said, not really meaning it that way at all. “Do you know where I can get it?” I never feel bad about getting music for free; this goes back to the whole year-end thing—I’d rather hear more than decide what’s best about less. Which is why I never want to feel like I can’t access something that might be provocative. Which is why I’ll especially never trip about hunting down free Hella songs. I’ve seen the band a dozen times. I bought one of the first 50 shirts they made. I own some of the albums on vinyl. I’m a supporter, baby. “You should be able to find it on Soulseek,” Josh said, finally experiencing Hella’s cultish fandom first hand. The look on his face was awesome.

Now that I’ve absorbed There’s No 666 In Outer Space a dozen times, I’ve come to the conclusion that Mr. Hill (Zach) is basically like some kaleidoscopic distortion of Phil Collins. Mr. Hill may not sing, but he’s a powerful front man, working harder than anyone else on stage or in the studio. Rumor has it he co-wrote the lyrics with Aaron Ross. The lyrics are pretty great, too. Though they rely on abstractness, the experimental/abstract-gothic/retro-sci-fi/medieval-zombie imagery achieve humor—something The Mars Volta seem to fear worse than sucking it up and admitting that it’s time to go platinum. Don’t get me wrong: The Volta lyrics are dark and weird at no expense to the overall product, but it’s nice to hear Mr. Ross moan about “the ungrateful dead” while Hella seizure all over backing track. The track I speak of—called “The Ungratefull Dead”—is one of my favorites and an exemplar for the new album and band. As Nave points out, it feels like a relief to hear Mr. Hill and Mr. Seim stop on a dime every so often, especially since there’s 150% more sound that needs to stop on any given dime. Also, I think Nave would agree that the last couple Hella releases—the sporadically tolerable double album and the nonsensical musical component to the Concentration Face DVD—were heavy on the noise and light on detail and craft. The biggest victim seemed to be the production clarity established by the first two Hella albums (and even Total Bugs Bunny On Wild Bass). The clarity of No 666 succeeds perfectly—if geometrically: each listen is like finding another face of the shape. Listen once and attempt to decipher Mr. McWhirtner’s bass parts, which are like audio Braille (confusing but helpful). Listen again to pick out the dueling guitars—who knows who plays what when both sound this good. And I’ve found a new hero in Mr. Ross. He sings with the oblique gusto Cedric Bixler reached for (desperately?) on The Volta’s Amputechture. But now I understand that Mr. Bixler lacked the surprises and melodies that Mr. Ross tackles and holds down. Mr. Ross sounds like one tuneful weirdo.

I don’t want to keep involving The Volta—I have like a zillion more tiny anecdotes about seeing Mr. Hill at the coffee shop, or playing with Mr. Josh’s old band, or about Mr. Seim’s custom guitars and progressive hair styles. All of which I’ll save for next time. So as I was saying: The Volta is one of my other favorite groups—a group I might have been more impressed with at some points in my life. That makes it feel like a big deal to say that with No 666, I think progressive music officially has two Zues’. The Volta’s hasty follow-up to one of my favorite 2005 albums was indeed one of my favorite albums in 2006. But Hella have basically invaded, destroyed, and repopulated The Volta’s every proggy intention. All this excites me for the future; I feel like a groovy sorcerer just reanimated Yes and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. I’m hoping to score front row seats for the inevitable showdown between Hella and The Volta, where they duel for the intergalactic sonic supremacy on a stage made of emerald dreams in the heart of Mt. Vesuvius. I hear the acoustics in there positively kill.



Click to download “The Ungratefull Dead” by Hella.
Click to download “ The Things That People Do When They Think No One's Looking” by Hella.
Click to download this "Thing" that Josh Hill and yours truly recorded a few years ago.

Hella’s WEBSITE.
Hella on MYSPACE.
Hella on PUREVOLUME.
Hella on LAST.FM.
Hella on WIKIPEDIA.
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Peruse Zach Hill’s ART.
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