A Reminder To "The Welcome Table" By Mysterious New Ninjas - Super Numeri

"The Welcome Table" 2005

It takes a pretty shrewd band to fool people into thinking their music is boring. Granted, that kind of shrewdness should be fairly common in rock music, where patience is a vice and the Ramones' conquering-heroes status is, 30 years on, posited directly against the evil of side-length prog suites. But the surly bounds initially appear to have been broken with this album: The cover looks like the tablecloth at a Shakey's Pizza gawped at while under the effect of assorted hallucinogens, there's a song called "The Chart" (does the 12-inch have the Excel spreadsheet dubstrumental?), the leadoff track is 24 and a half minutes long, honestly, people. Teeth of the keep-it-simple crowd have been gnashed recently over a Strokes album being 54 minutes and including a couple of funny-sounding guitar bits; perhaps this is not a climate in which Super Numeri belong.

So let's pretend it's 1970 in Cologne, by way of Columbia's Studio B. The moment the realization sinks in that The Welcome Table is not, in fact, boring neatly coincides with the realization that Super Numeri like them some Can and electric Miles Davis, but possibly suspect that those folks were a bit too earthbound. The Liverpool collective, by point of comparison, are psychedelic in practically the exact opposite way that their terse immediate neighbors Clinic are, opting instead to roll out slow builds and gradual revelations. "The Sea Wolves" opens with a needling minute's worth of seesawing thereminesque call-and-response blips, like a submarine's radar with sleep apnea. It's an irritating lure that suddenly coalesces into sense once the Celtic harp trickles in to spar with a Wayne Shorter-like lullaby sax. "The Buzzard and the Lamb" toys around with pseudoaluminum synthesizers, hints of guitar, and stray percussion glowing through the seams, until the cowbell-and-conga percussion rattles in to evoke a microcosm of Miles's On the Corner and push toward the sun.

And then there's "The First League of Angels," that monstrous first track. Ignore the official track listing, shuffle the beginning to the end, and it becomes the crescendo of a '70s-esque avant-psych epiphany: The final dying breath of an Eno synth leads into the harp, which is gradually subsumed by a fusion-Bonham drum stomp, a Holger Czukay bass line fueled by a bit too much coffee or tea, and a guitar that evokes more fantastical dope haze with mere reverb than most Elephant Sixers could hope to accomplish with an armada of Syd-alikes. (By City Pages)


"The Enochian Way" Mixtape 2005

Track list:

Sonny - Sharrock Black Woman
Silver - Apples Lovefingers
Yoko Ono - Greenfield Morning I Pushed An Empty Baby Carriage All Over The City
Brigitte Bardot - Contact
Little Richard - God Is Real
Pop Levi - Skip Ghetto
Fairport Convention - Autopsy
Joe Byrd & The Field Hippies - Moonsong
The Velvet Underground - Lady Godiva's Operation
The Beach Boys - Cool Cool Water
Snap Ant - Gunsticker
The Flamingos - I Only Have Eyes For You
Biltone - Humming Bird
Bruce Haak - Word Game
Loka - Meet Dad
The Shocking Blue - Love Buzz
Tonto's Expanding Head Band - Riversong
Esa Shields - Frolicsome On Last Road
Super Numeri - The Red Lady/Lunar Mansions
John Lee Hooker - Moanin’ The Blues

"Great Aviaries" 2003

Promise is sprinkled like birdseed throughout Great Aviaries, Super Numeri’s blinding menagerie of instrumentation, which grounds itself in post-rock and percussive jazz. Each track presents a new twist on its predecessor, adding elements with bold confidence and at a patient, comfortable pace. Sitars, Victorian music boxes, and Doors-inspired organ all find their way into Super Numeri’s tour van, which is already packing the legacy of Ninja Tune acts such as Cinematic Orchestra and Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra (whose complex instrumentals often offered respite from the labels highly evolved trip-jazz mission statement).

The live band feel is inescapable, as electronics and studio trickery become window dressing for the tight interplay of the group. “The Ember Love” and “Classic British Ponds” easily build a bridge over the troubled waters between post-rock and cloying jam bands, fortifying their extended meanderings with a thick bottom end that ensures the noodling doesn’t overcome the beat. “Classic British Ponds” swells as the percussion reaches a treacherous climax, then breaks over the simple bassline, which pulses into “Flaurent Carmin”, a hypnotic, echo-laden slice of warped funk that sounds like Osibisa fronted by Roger Waters, all in the throws of a dedicated hydrocodone binge.

“Sundial” carries the afro-beat torch as well, but allows it to roam wild and attack the speaker cabinets with bursts of shrieking guitar and squawking brass, sounding like the Philly Zoo during mating season, and the sloppy stop-start dust that “Beaks” kicks up is a natural follow up. You could almost get away with saying it rocks, but you’d get laughed at for sure; a gentle trip like “Otter’s Poll”-- draped with groggy harp and violin-- is a lot more Andrew Coleman than Andrew W.K.: the guitars get crazy, sure, but they never get up to 11.

The strings that find their way into the commotion as bookends to “Sundial” are stunning, and their presence on Great Aviaries resonates deeply. Super Numeri’s Ninja Tune bio, credited to their landlord, makes much of the orchestral elements in effect on the album, and rightfully so. They are the cool satin sheets that the afternoon rehearsal funk of “The Ember Love” rests on, the tranquil stream that winds through the wet summer air of the album’s opener and first single, “The Electric Horse Garden”, an impressive number that could easily sit beside Coldplay or Phish’s quietest moments without breaking a Liverpudlian sweat. Used sparingly, the strings never overwhelm, content instead to simply bring a touch of majesty to the party. It’s a seamless integration.

With only eight songs on offer, Great Aviaries seems insufficient, sticking to a lower weight class when it could easily be taking on the big boys. Most of the pieces stand by their established modes for the duration, with little variation in mood or energy. You can be certain Super Numeri have some chops, and equally sure that their debut is holding something back. But they make up for their brevity with a number of excellent refurbishings of the Ninja Tune sound, pulling the soul of the samurai into their tea-shaded rock unit and working it ragged. If there’s a safe bet in the newest Ninja generation, Super Numeri are it. (By Pitchfork)

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