Esther Burns – The Genius Of The Crowd

On April 21, 1975, Milton Friedman wrote an economic policy letter to Chilean president Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. The brief, condensed letter detailed a “shock program” intended to curb inflation and promote economic growth. It also completely avoided the subject of Pinochet’s fetish for the “disappearance, killing, torture and kidnapping” of political rivals, claiming over 3,400 victims in all, as documented by the Rettig Commission. The association with Pinochet cast a shadow over Friedman’s 1976 Nobel Prize award, and indeed, over the rest of his career. Five years have passed since Milton Friedman’s death, and he is still an incredibly divisive figure in American politics and academia.  For some, he was the most tireless freedom advocate in our lifetimes, and for others, he will remain the quintessential disaster capitalist.

So when his voice opens the new Esther Burns album, The Genius of the Crowd, we know we’re in for a ride: “First of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed?”

Their previous album La Valeur du Vide, (French for “The Value of the Void”) was woefully overlooked and under-reviewed, and such critical aloofness is difficult to explain. Take “L’intranquille,” for one: the wintry solo piano cuts a clear path, which is groomed by the slightly trilling cello and voice sample, then properly annihilated by a shrill industrial coda. The title song is reminiscent of a three-way stand off in which no one blinks: looping piano, an interlude of Ennio Morricone-inspired guitar, and a straight-line sample from “You’re Gonna Need Somebody” as recorded by Charley Patton. (“Tell me when he come down his hair gonna be like lamb’s wool and his eyes like flames of fire, and every man gonna know he’s the son of the true living god.”)

The Genius of the Crowd is far more focused in scope, borrowing its name from the Charles Bukowski poem. Bukowski shows up for his Friedman debate five minutes late, but with ample time for rebuttal. The voice recording is shrouded with a thickly sad piano and synthesized cello likeness. Bukowski’s work is not exactly uplifting on paper, but the sample of his slow, mournful voice and long exhales make for an agonizing listen. You can smell the tobacco smoke in the air, taste the cold whiskey in the glass. The man really does sound like serotonin with legs in this clip:

beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it

Parts I and II, the first of which begins at 5:15, find synthesized Mellotron and drum fading in and out between the poet’s admonitions. Perched somewhere between Antonin Artaud’s rants on their previous album, the simulated reed would have communicated stark raving insanity. But here, the timid, low-density instrument and its tightly-looping two-note riff are punishingly dismal. Bukowsi’s voice becomes our voice:

beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

Bukowki’s entrance is grieving, as if Friedman’s ideology has shaken him down to his cells. But his exit is cocksure, a slashing cowpunk guitar riff that Quentin Tarantino ought to hear before writing his next screenplay.  That almost has to be the crack of horse spurs with every boot stomp, the strike of a hammer against rail spike with every percussion shot. The poet’s morose conclusion is hair-raising: “their hatred will be perfect …. their finest art.”

Was Milton Friedman’s letter to Pinochet an open endorsement of that dictator’s bloodspilling inclinations? Or the sort of unfortunate lapse that plagues the mild-mannered? Quite frankly, that is a matter for those who knew Friedman to decide. In their time, both men would only have praised the wisdom of crowds only ironically, but here, on Bukowski’s court, the writer scores a clear win. And so what if the listeners’ conclusions aren’t entirely their own? Sometimes a soapbox makes great music even that much more fun.

- Fred Nolan for Fluid Radio

www.entropy-records.com