It was late — but not that late; there was work to be done after all — on one night or another of this year’s Freak Valley Festival in Germany, which I was electrified with gratitude for witnessing. I was catching a ride back to the little hotel where I was staying who first didn’t, then did, have a room for me, and chatting to the volunteer driving the shuttle about the day, music, and so on. I am rarely “chatty,” but it had been a very good day, and I feel comfortable saying that without remembering specifically which day it was. Her name was Jule, short for Julia Frasch, and over the course of the seven minutes or so, I found out she was the lead vocalist in Coltaine on the band’s 2020 album, Afterhour in Walhalla. I had the Bandcamp page on my phone before I even opened the door to get out of the vehicle, and made the investment more or less immediately upon entering my room. That was June, and I’ve been working to get my head around the record one way or another since.

Based in Karlsruhe, Coltaine would seem to have made crossing genre lines central to their purpose since the outset. Founded by guitarist/vocalist Moritz Berg, and bassist Benedikt Berg under the somehow-less-memorable-but-hey-witches-gotta-get-some-too moniker Witchfucker, the band’s first outing in 2014, Üntrve Bläck Metäl — pressed in an edition of 30 CDs; there are five left as of this post — immediately engaged with the idea of knowing the rules and standards by which styles are designated and shirking them. The personnel and name of the project may have changed, but listening to the psychedelic ritualized char of Afterhour in Walhalla‘s periodically-saxed 11-song/47-minute run, the core intention would seem to be the change. With Michelle Langer on drums, Frasch on lead vocals, and flutist/saxophonist/percussionist Stephan Schimassek in the six-piece lineup, plus guests Julie Grimmer (vocals, percussion) and Fast Fred (percussion), the pulling together, mixing, separating, reconfiguring of aesthetic is central to what Coltaine do.

Songs occupy spaces minimal or overwhelming, beginning with the procession-into-the-water of “Surfing Skeleton Undead,” which gathers itself over the course of its first minute and comes to a swell of blackened heavy psych rock and atmospheric density. Wherever the album goes thereafter, whether it’s the intertwining melodies and shouts and swirls of “God is Nature, God is Dead” or the three-minute mood-guitar/croon of “Berge,” it remains decisively not-metal, and basks in the freedom of movement allowed for that. Afterhour in Walhalla is the band’s sophomore full-length following 2016’s Mutter Morgana — they have a slew of other live offerings, EPs, two-songers, and so on as well, before and after this record — and while I don’t know over how long a period its material came together, the prevailing vibe is expansive enough, especially as the album proceeds into its second half, to make me think it was spread over some time. “Berge” begets the sharper tension of “Verlust,” a different version of which appeared on the first LP, and the flute, acoustics, chimes and chants of “Green Table,” the ritualized psychedelic aspects of which speak to the spirit of everything that surrounds even as they come to purposeful contradiction in the “eins, zwei, drei, vier” count-in at the start of the buzz-toned, dual-vocal, oh-and-a-tambourine-because-of-course blackened punk rock of “Kreative Freiheit” that ends side A in such a manner as to highlight the point that Coltaine — or Witchfucker as they were at the time — have loosed the reins of their aural inhibitions and that the fire-on-the-hillside-at-dusk vibe as depicted on the cover art is very much alive in the music.

That becomes even more true (or ‘trve,’ perhaps, at least to itself) as the whoops and howls in the early going of the nine-minute “Warsong” make an especially ethereal launch for side B. A significant achievement unto itself, “Warsong” is rife with art-rock pulse, Grace Slickian vocal declarations, psychedelic jazz and echoing tremolo guitar, a bit of mouth harp at the end as it comes apart making it feel as though somehow the jam was just starting even as it finished. Interludes play more of a role on the second half of the album than the first, with “Wüstling” renewing the chimes and flute of “Green Table” amid some added shaker, light percussion and fingers sliding on guitar strings before “Reflections,” and the penultimate “Waterfallout” with its toy piano or whatever that is and deep-mixed fuzzy electric guitar ahead of the finale “Intergalaktische Mondzuckerpiraten,” which raises the crucial question, if Coltaine aren’t intergalactic moon-sugar pirates, then who is? Certainly I have no idea.

The back and forth aspect of Afterhour in Walhalla‘s latter half, thankfully, does not come with a loss of focus on the part of the band. “Warsong” is a marked accomplishment in vibe and spaciousness, and “Reflections” solidifies around impulses toward psychedelic and progressive black metal shown earlier but dispenses with the harsher shouts and screams, leaving a fluid-sounding ghost of extremity in their place amid the saxophone, rolling groove and forward-thinking arrangement. “Intergalaktische Mondzuckerpiraten” follows suit in closing the record, so that, having eaten whatever ayahuasca-esque lysergic plant — organically grown, no pesticides — was on offer with “Warsong,” the listener then careens into and out of lucidity through the final four cuts. It is Coltaine‘s willful defiance of the rules of genre that make this world-building possible, and as much as one so often is tempted to compartmentalize music, they show what can happen when the mission becomes to encompass, not to limit, various styles and methods. It is refreshing how individualized Afterhour in Walhalla ultimately is.

Aside from the name change, Coltaine have continued to stay busy in terms of music as well. 2021 wrought the lockdown jams collection, Bäd Vibez Önly – Aufarbeitung einer Krise, and earlier-2022 brought the live single “When Tigers Used to Smoke (Live)” as a 10-minute preview of what reportedly will be the opening track of their third full-length. That may or may not change as Coltaine move toward that eventuality, but the song is an adventure just the same, and with the band recently announcing tour dates alongside mournful folk singer-songwriter Kariti, one way or another, they’re clearly starting to think about moving past this record and on to the next.

So be it. What will come will come when it comes. I’m just glad I got to hear this one, and as always, I hope you enjoy too.

Thanks for reading.

—

5:49AM. Kid is expected awake any minute now. It’s been at least a week, maybe two, since he slept this late. We went to the zoo yesterday and I guess I kind of ran him into the ground. Good. He needs that. Was falling asleep on the couch next to me during end-of-day-comedown tv time yesterday evening, which is also rare. No fever, if that’s your next question. It’s usually mine at this point, even though we’re all vaccinated and so on.

It was a hard week. In the continuing saga of me being off my meds, I feel a bit more even this week but am generally speaking from a lower place in myself, and I think if you look around here at some of what I’ve written over the last few days, you can see that.

Ah, here he comes down the stairs…

I emailed a friend yesterday about burnout. I rarely do that kind of thing. Most of my relationships are transactional. My “friends” are my friends when they have new albums or tours coming. But I have been feeling hard exhaustion, before and after coming back from Psycho Las Vegas, and am somewhat at a loss how to handle it. I’m tired. Tired of emails. Tired of Facebook. Tired of tour announcements for European bands hitting the road in October and tired even more from caring about it. He told me he meditates for half an hour in the morning, has his routine, tries to find time to relax during the day. I’m not really in a place where I can do that kind of thing, the routine notwithstanding. If I have a spare minute, and even if I don’t, if I’m sitting on my phone during the aforementioned tv time, I’m trying to write. The sad truth is I need this. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me who feels pathetic knowing that.

Homeboy, who would perhaps raise an eyebrow at being referred to as such, expressed faith that I’d sort my shit out. Based on my 40-plus years of very much not, I have my doubts, but the sentiment was appreciated.

Nonetheless we proceed. Burnt or not. Next week is packed, the week after is packed, and the two weeks after that are the Quarterly Review. I told that to The Patient Mrs. last night as she was talking about going to Montreal for a conference the week of the 15th and she said, “happy anniversary baby,” because that’ll be the second week of the Quarterly Review. I said give me a fucking break. She said she was just joking. I said in that case, give me two breaks. We went to bed. That’s life.

Anyway, The Pecan starts school next Tuesday, so that will help get me more time to work and take some of the edge off that has built up over the course of this Summer of Pivot. The Patient Mrs. starting her semester, first full week this week, is added stress, so these things balance out, but we keep going. That’s the thing, keep going. Someone told me this week I was doing a good job as a parent. I damn near cried. No one who actually knows me says that. Certainly not anyone who’s actually seen me parent. I’m fucking awful. I hover. I over-parent. I get mad. I get sad. I grab him and move him and threaten to take shit away because that’s basically the only time he’ll listen to me and, say, stop pushing a 45-year-old woman out of his way at the touch-tank at the zoo. All your bullshit, there it is. I knew going into becoming a father that I would be the source of this kid’s emotional baggage owing to the circumstances of his birth, the donor sperm, all kinds of families, however else we reframe the narrative of ‘daddy shoots blanks so we had to bring in outside help’ to make it palatable/livable for all, but adding to that baggage because I can’t let go of my own crap is a downward emotional spiral that I’ve been riding for the better part of the last five years. Longer even. It’s all part of the same, thoroughly fucked, thing. Me. I’m the problem. Always. So much old shame.

I’m trying. I’m doing my best. Every day, I’m doing my best. And I’m failing all the time.

Oh yeah, fuck Scott Kelly though. At least I’m not beating anybody or trying to convince anyone I’m anything other than a fucking mess. Low bar, perhaps. Fine.

Monday is Labor Day in the US, which is fucking laughable since anytime someone starts talking about supporting worker’s rights or helping poor people in this country on any level more than a snarky tweet, they get assassinated. Happy Labor Day. Here’s a bullet in your face. I’m surprised we still get the day off. The sad American progressive left, waiting for the day when being right about a whole bunch of shit will be enough to actually convince anyone to support a cause. Don’t hold your breath.

I’m gonna go before this gets any worse. Gimme show today, 5PM Eastern. I say “fuck” a few times in the first voice track. I got frustrated. I don’t know. It’s been a hard week. It’s been a hard summer. I’m ready to be done with it and shift into a different routine. I doubt I’ll have time to meditate then either, but I’ve stopped getting high every day, which I was doing for a few weeks there in my I’ll-make-a-habit-of-anything lifestyle (see also this site), and I treated myself to a new Pelican shirt, so if you want to end on a positive note, at least the shirt’s comfortable for now before it goes in the wash.

Have a great and safe weekend. Gonna go to a wedding on Saturday which will be fun and I’ve got two nights of shows in a row next week — Rammstein and Stöner — that are both in New Jersey. One I’ll write about. The other is Rammstein. Both will be awesome. Hope to see you out there, and thanks for reading in the meantime.

FRM.

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Tags: Afterhour in Walhalla, Coltaine, Coltaine Afterhour in Walhalla, Germany, Karlsruhe, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2022 at 11:56 am and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.