Nels Cline
Web Site
August 2001

"That’s what improv does for me, besides sustaining interest and mystery. It enables me to sidestep my own obsessive, doctrinary impulses as a composer or organizer."

Destroy All Nels Cline
Atavistic
2001

Reviewed By
Nils Jacobson
Derek Taylor

By Nathaniel Friedman

On the surface, Nels Cline’s Interstellar Space Revisited (Atavistic, 1999) seemed doomed to either pretense or implacability. The guitarist’s first release for Chicago’s Atavistic certainly was an audacious one, as he and percussionist Gregg Bendian re-interpreted one of Coltrane’s most inscrutable recordings. But, rather than intimidate the listener or embarrass everyone involved, the end result was surprisingly approachable, even sympathetic.

Keep this in mind when you first encounter Destroy All Nels Cline, the Los Angeles-based Cline’s equally ambitious follow-up. With its arsenal of stringed instruments (four guitars, electric bass, and the inimitable harp of Zeena Parkins, to be exact), nihilistic title, and ecumenical interest in almost everything hip that’s happened in the past thirty-five years of electric guitar use, Destroy is one daunting package. And, clocking in at over seventy-five minutes, it can take a while to get a feel for the project in its entirety. After a few good listens, though, Destroy All Nels Cline reveals itself as highly personal, consistently rhapsodic, and totally organic—the same kind of heady humanism that made Interstellar Space Revisited such a success.

Although the group reflects Cline’s "investigation of electric stringed instruments and their overtones," its formation also served an almost therapeutic purpose.

"I first put the group together when both my longstanding trio and Geraldine Fibbers had just disbanded, and when other aspects of my personal life were in dissolution, as well. I wanted a group that wasn’t so much about me, where my soloing wasn’t the main voice. Also, it was an opportunity to work with some of my dearest friends, so we could get together and rehearse while I figured out what the hell my life was all about."

No one’s quite sure if "Destroy All Nels Cline" is the name of the group, the title of the album, or both. Either way, it says a lot about the leader’s state of mind at the time. Guitarist Carla Bozulich came up with it, after Cline decided that he wanted a name that included the word "destroy" and his name ("it’s been helpful in last ten years"). And yes, he cleared it with Mike Kelley, of legendary rock obscurists Destroy All Monsters.

"I wanted a name that had the world ‘destroy’ in it, for two-fold reasons. ‘Destroy’ in terms of an intensity factor, a focus. And also in terms of ‘extinguish.’ It’s a paradox, or it’s hypocrisy, because of course I am the arbitrator of all that happens compositionally, yet at the same time I’m expressing a desire to be sort of nullified by the project. Also, that strong desire heightens my presence rather than nullifies it. So it’s kind of bullshit in that way."

Don’t think for a second, though, that he doesn’t appreciate the ironic, almost snide, character of the phrase. Cline is wary of being taken too seriously, lest he be accused of self-seriousness.

"I think I have a tendency on this record—and even others—to get a little bit serious. I don’t mind having that undercut. Certainly "Talk Of A Chocolate Bed" was designed to be mildly amusing thematically, and then encourage a certain kind of playful interplay. I don’t think there’s anything particularly amusing about the Horace Tapscott piece ["As In Life"] or "The Ringing Hand." But if someone wanted to find something amusing there, that’s fine with me. I don’t have any doctrine I live by; I try to do the opposite."

"That’s what improv does for me, besides sustaining interest and mystery. It enables me to sidestep my own obsessive, doctrinary impulses as a composer or organizer."

In keeping with Cline’s mood of existential turmoil, the group on Destroy was brought together "to do climactic, cathartic music." Aesthetically, something similar happened, with the entire tradition of truly electric (as opposed to simply amplified) guitar finding its way into Cline’s conception. And to say that the album brings together Hendrix, Bill Frisell (especially his work in Naked City), Sonny Sharrock, the Minutemen and Sonic Youth understates just what a feat of churning imagination it is; Destroy All Nels Cline is at the same time seamless and defiantly elusive.

The influence of Sonic Youth, who also happen to be longtime friends of Cline’s, is one of the most intriguing aspects of Destroy. You can hear echoes of the indie-noise pioneers throughout the album, ranging from the broken-glass chording of "Chi Cagoan" (think Confusion is Sex) to the Daydream Nation-esque tides of melody on "Progression." It’s stunning to hear a jazz/indie rock fusion (for lack of a better word) that exploits the complexities of the latter, rather than one in which jazz is condemned to stylized slumming. But as Cline points out, "a lot of my love of those sounds stems not only from my interest in Sonic Youth and Glenn Branca, but from the sound of rock bands in general, that have more than one guitar kind of chiming away."

The album also has its share of serpentine themes that Cline describes as "a blistering, notey thing with lots of drama. There’s a kind of adrenaline rush you get from hearing that. At times it reminded me of a kind of Mahavishnu aesthetic, which surprised me, actually." Certainly, the ascendant runs that open "As In Life" recall John McLaughlin at his most convincingly inflamed, even if, as Cline says, the similarities "are probably an accident."

Still, he is not about to dismiss these inadvertent references, or what they say about his history as a player and listener. Destroy is about a frank totality of influence and experience, a musical confessive. If experimentation is also discovery, than this just might be the most earnest, full-blooded album of experimental guitar ever committed to record.

"I continue to embrace those key moments of fascination or inspiration, rather than taking them and discarding them. I think, maybe upon analysis, I might arrive at the conclusion that ‘oh, it’s too easy to play this kind of chord and have it build up, and think that then the whole world is going to change—even though it’s not, cause it never did.’ But I like to keep believing in all those simple little things."

"I had spent much of my life in the past bringing certain impulses out of my musical life. And when I started incorporating all of my impulses, either randomly or equally—however you want to look at it—that was when I became, I think, a happier person in general."