Babils is a group of five intense musicians based in Brussels, and The Joint Between is their debut album. This CD would be the perfect soundtrack for a descent into the Underworld. There are long tracks of subterranean bass guitar lines overlaid with messy daubs of psychedelic electric guitar scree and spooky organ drones, topped off with skronking horns and deranged drums and percussion.
‘Hennes Elephants’ sounds like the very Gates of Hell are being opened, and all manner of demons and monsters are being unleashed. ‘Dent de Sagesde’ gives us some respite, with a flute taking centre stage – and sounds not unlike something from Tangerine Dream’s Electronic Meditation. Gabriel Severin and Michel Duyck (the latter credited with “ufo guitars”) are the prime architects of this madness, and I suspect there may be the odd Can and Captain Beefheart LPs lurking in their record collections.
Some scary (and very original) sleeve art features elephant heads and a peculiar vaginal shape, which contains another elephant head and scrawled text informing us that “this album is made for stereo devices” – er, thanks boys…
Preview some MP3’s here.
[Trivia note: drummer Etienne Vernaeve was in Belgian band Isolation Ward, who released a memorable 12″ single on Les Disques du Crepsucule way back in the early mists of time – around 1982.]
