Full Length Review: CINEMA CINEMA "CCXMD" (Nefarious Industries) by Dave Wolff

Band: CINEMA CINEMA

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Country: USA

Genre: Art punk

Full Length: CCXMD

Label: Nefarious Industries

Format: CD, digital, streaming

Release date: November 1, 2019

It may be a rare occurrence for a punk or post-punk band to cross the line and venture outside their boundaries (and I don’t mean the kind of mainstreamized, reconstituted pop punk we hear too often). But when a band comes along and does so, the same motivation exists and it usually becomes something memorable. “CCXMD”, the sixth release from Brooklyn’s Cinema Cinema, crawls from the begrimed, trash littered streets of the five boroughs to contend with the experimental jazz/noise of the early 2000s. While checking it out I was engrossed enough to check out the band’s discography all the way back to their early releases. From “57” and “Shoot The Freak” to their 2017 full length “Man Bites Dog” the band investigated many different auditory impressions looking for what would eventually set them apart from their Sonic Youth/Clash/PJ Harvey-inspired provenance. It sounds like it was a measured, deliberate process of trying different ambient sounds to settle into the freeform avant-garde jazz, seemingly incoherent musicianship and premelting noise of their new album (“A Night at the Fights” and “Man Bites Dog” were particularly crucial to their growth). Those ambient sounds, or rather the sum total of those ambient sounds, play a part in how “CCXMD” turned out. Their hard work is apparently paying off as “CCXMD” has been recognized by Big Takeover, Invisible Oranges, Brooklyn Vegan, Pop Matters, Aural Aggravation and The Village Voice among other publications. Pop Matters said Cinema Cinema are torchbearers for the part of NYC’s music scene populated by unsigned bands who mix urban frustration with intellectual experimenting. The band says their disjointed song structure with its shrieking saxophones, wandering guitars, scrambled percussion and manic vocals (as well as some Doors and Jethro Tull influence) resulted from learning to play in an improvisational style and listening to bands like Mahavishnu Orchestra. Going into the studio and improvising as they went along, having come to know each other’s playing inside and out, is the only way they could make “CCXMD” sound spontaneous and voluntary. What’s more, the band’s arrangemernts leave it a mystery as to the direction they’ll decide to take on their next release. -Dave Wolff

Lineup:

Ev Gold: Guitars, vocals

Paul Claro: Drums, percussion:

Matt Darriau: Wind, loops, vocals:

Track list:

1. Collective Outpoint

2. Cyclops

3. Revealed

4. Colors

5. Radio Ready

6. Ode to a Gowanus Flower

7. Cloud 3