Desert Sessions Vols. 11+ 12 (2019)

…And The Circus Is Back In Town

And with it, endless joy and a big magical sack full of wonderful riffs and ideas paired with a rare playful masculinity and crude mischief is back in music. The new Desert Sessions Vols. 11+12 are pure adult fun pervaded by lunacy and sincerety, and it is like nothing else out there. Veni, vidi, vici.

„The Desert Sessions is the childbrain of Joshua Homme & is done on strict accordance with the contractual ‘deal’ he signed with the Lucille Fur, Taxidermy & Talent Agency.“ it says in the new releases inlay, and despite gathering an illustrious gang of complices around him once again, there is no getting around the fact that we’ll have to concentrate on our main man, Homme.

I was 23 years old when I listened to the Desert Sessions 9+10 and had to turn almost fucking 40 to get a follow-up. 16 years might seem like a long wait, but it is not in terms of the endless and ancient desert and the ‘longest running mix-tape in existence’ that is Joshua Homme’s Desert Sessions. In the meanwhile Homme recorded 9 albums with his bands Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures and recorded Post Pop Depression (2016) with Iggy Pop, let alone countless other collaborations and appearances. One cannot say that the man has been lazy.

Desert Sessions Volume 11+12 comes with a striking artwork, a beautiful carnival of colors and morbid symbolism to back up the laissez-faire title: „Arrivederci Despair“. It is the first hint of where the direction of this album goes- away from the recent years’ Homme productions with a too dominant Boneface artwork, back to the crude artwork from Era Vulgaris (2007). More sickness and fun is being promised, and the record delivers it up to that perfect point of an almost-overdose.

The opener ‘Move Together‘ is the introduction of these sessions’ most prominent guest musician: Billy Gibbons, a hero not only for ZZ Top fans, but one of the few musicans respected overall in the rock’n’roll and garage scene. You actually have to listen twice to realize that it is not Homme on the vocals, as Gibbons is channeling the late-Homme falsetto that is the music world’s sweetest secret. The two artists seem to merge into one – Gibbons delivering the self-written lyrics that are an ode to cheap and real togetherness under a slow synth groove She don’t like my empty whiskey bottles / I don’t like the smell of her hairspray / She don’t like my empty bank account / And I don’t like her throwin’ my shit away / But we like the way we move together / But we like the way we move together– when Ginger Elvis, triggered like a Pavlov’s Dog in anticipation of a good moving-together, comes in leading the attack of three guitars, delivering the sex to then blissfully release it in an angelic backing choir. A psychedelic and carnal heaven dominated by Homme’s always distinctive and sublime guitar slinging.

Noses In Roses, Forever is my highlight. Picking up the album title ‘Arrivederci Despair’, it is a rocking and unpathetic hymn to re-awakened joy in life and blowing the dark clouds away. It sounds like the final remedy to the crisis and despair on the Queens of The Stone Age album Like Clockwork (2013):

At long last the rain was finally gone
I just know the moment has come, I can feel it
Nothing but blue skies from here to God
No more worries, baby (No more worries)
Sayonara despair (Goodbye despair)

Only, it is a circus. An emotion and confession as slippery as an eel, twitching in multiple directions „Gonna have our noses in roses forever / Everybody’s just, kind and fair / Every paper said and I quote / “Do believe it, all the news is good everywhere” / No more worries baby / No emotion“. The new holy trininity of the testerone guitar, Joshua Homme, Matt Sweeney & Billy Gibbons, support every twitch with a different idea- a break, rhythm change, new riff, a choir coming in… this is unhinged and infinite creativity. It is too good to be true really, sexy, non-chalant and of an highly attractive masculinity. One that is adult, playful, and shaking hips.

The female voice on the album is Libby Grace with If You Run. A simple and beautiful acoustic melody with a graceful vocal delivery that is curatively far from reflecting the girly and whispering folk-vocal trend that is going on for too long now. No, Libby Grace is in the tradition of the past Desert Sessions women like PJ Harvey, all woman and with a wisdom and passion to share. Homme is married to the wonderful Brody Dalle after all, we know his preferences: substantial and complex bad-asses.

‘Chic ‘Tweetz‘ is the pure joy. Here we have surreal lyrics written and performed by a mysterious “Töôrnst Hülpft”, a horny and homosexual digital citizen from Lapland. He delivers his charmingly gormless and low-iq smash hit in a horny chipmunks dialect that shifts into Magma-porn German occassionaly: Send me some: nude pics! Or let’s make naughty flix. Just cram me in your mix, I got trix. What’s with these: hot nights! I’m wearing these tights… You jealous you little hamstring man? Vell come ‘n get me! You’ve got to listen to it to believe it, it’s wonderfully sick and demented. It’s like Bulby, the wrecked comic bulb from the Era Vulgaris cover, has finally come to life.

By now the identity of this mysterious singer seems to have unraveled: it is none other than Dave Grohl, the man who had his real highlight as musician in minute 4:33-5:52 in QOTSA’s ‘Song For The Dead‘. Well, ‘Chic Tweetz‘ is another highlight and a de-escalating reminder that Dave Grohl is actually a cool guy despite making consistently horrible corporate music with the Foo Fighters.

Far East For The Trees is a wonderful oriental instrumental. With the use of Middle-Eastern sounds- a novelty in Homme’s work- it is pin-pointing at the duality of our amateurish perception: Rock’n’roll doesn’t sound exotic to our Western ears anymore, but it doesn’t always have to be mystic oriental sounds that translate the drone of endless sands, fata morganas and a lizard-like perception. It was Homme and nobody before him who put the Californian Desert into rock-music with his various bands. When you think about it, this is most unique and a rich, new creation as starting point for interpretation by other artists. A creation now being picked up by Tinariwen for example, who are a group of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert, who collaborated with Matt Sweeney and Mark Lanegan on their last record. With the psychedelic and brutal drone he created early on with Kyuss, and that runs like a red thread through his varied work, Homme challenged the geographical hegemony on the musical interpretation of the desert. Far East For The Trees is the involuntary self-crowning and late distillation of Homme’s legacy: he is the American ambassador of the desert. A national treasure.

by Saliha Enzenauer

Desert Sessions Volume 11 ‘Arrivederci Despair’ +
Volume 12 ‘Tightwads & Nitwits & Critics & Heels’ (2019)