Brought together at Nashville’s Porter Rose Studio by an unconventional yet serendipitous teaming of a few Instagram reel “evolutionaries” (people who recognize the possibilities of anything and everything through the evolution of Instagram reels), experimental alt-rock drummer Christian Northover has pieced together a nine-track, 22-minute drum-kit-run-through-effects-pedals EP in an age when music reviewers may be required to go see Los Swamp Monsters live just to know if it’s actually a Wurlitzer electric piano being played or the guitarist emulating the sound, or see The Weird Sisters to make sure it’s actually a sax being blown and not pedals or effects.
Pedals have become a diverse yet staple DIY utility over recent years; they’ve opened the sounds of local individuals’ range from in-garage or bedroom to symphonic and arena-status (or used to sell the way Jack White plays, or within the most intense parts of Hozier’s choruses). They can open situations up to modern experimentation and new forms of emoting, as experienced on Christian Northover’s Wizards Made Me Do It, made with pedal wizard Alex Sanchez of Porter Rose Studio, guest pedalist/wizard 2 Rob Stewart, and guest pedalist Thomas Onebane (of King Lazy Eye fame).
“Get In Loser” opens with a pretty kickin’ hip-hop beat, with drums miked and wired through FX pedals the way a guitar does before plugging it into the amp, just in this case creating a ghetto head-bobbing, industrial rock sound worthy to serve as the soundtrack to a freakish video directed by Chris Cunningham.
Imagine your drummer sitting in the living room looking like he’s normally getting into/concentrating on a grooving beat, with headphones on, as you’re just passing through. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“PRAWNG” follows, sounding like what’s going on inside a dishwasher when you’re not in there, a swirling, driving rock banger, tremendously scary to the degree of “I’m Rolling” by Soul Coughing, until the roll was forever lost into the dark abyss of whatever Northover just swirled up.
“Experiment 2” comes in a little tamer, with ambient feedback and looming, airy fuzz applied to a miked snare and toms, emphasizing a pausing effect that seemingly mimics Jamaican DJ Kool Herc’s turntable in the circa-1970s Bronx, during the birth of hip-hop.
“Now Arriving at the Planet of Bees” seems a little misleading, drumming into existence the fuzz and buzz of a beehive, but an over-anxious hive, less to the notion of peacefully feeding on anise hyssop and more so the backstage footage of an early Nine Inch Nails documentary when Twiggy was partying with ’em.
“A.I. (Augmented Insanity)” is seemingly self-explanatory, but is really a calmer, grooving, low-key beat, with properly placed oscillating monsters and digitized pulling-the-straw-in-and-out-of-the-to-go-cup accompaniment.
“Cymbals Mysterioso (For Max Krozy)” stands as Northover’s first track with lyrics (with a faint “oh, yeah . . .” heard after one of the bigger crash-ride cymbal taps). This one utilizes the unique frequencies coming off of the cymbals to stir up notions of being inside the eye of the hurricane, a perfect metaphor for the album as a whole.
The album is a strong demonstration of musical evolution, as musicians are all just making sounds we think are neat, are funny and/or evoke a deep emotion among the individuals involved and anyone paying attention, anyway.
Wizards Made Me Do It pairs well with spitting some sick-ass, old-school bars, or heavily industrialized Trent Reznor roars, making it a spontaneous, flowing, in-the-moment-album by Middle Tennessee experimental drummer Christian Northover, et. al. Find Wizards Made Me Do It across the icons at Spotify, Apple, YouTube and Pandora.
