Brainkiller: Colourless Green Superheroes

RareNoise Records has made a cottage industry of attracting talent that not only doesn't color within the lines, but erases the lines altogether. Brainkiller is no exception to this approach. Comprised of the unlikely assembly of keyboards (Jacob Koller), trombone (Brian Allen), and drums (Hernan Hecht), Brainkiller floats down the same river navigated recently by Berserk! and Slobber Pup to a musical place that can only be described as a crime scene, but in a good way.

Keyboardist Koller is fond of overdriving his Fender Rhodes to the point where he conjures Chick Corea's banging around on Miles Davis: Live At The Fillmore East (March 7, 1970): It's About That Time (Columbia, 2001). Koller tries to mimic electric guitars on "The Vindicator Returns" while providing a parlor concert on acoustic piano on "Noodlin.'" Allen's trombone takes on as many personae as there are songs, from the Ray Nance-blues talking 'bone on "Noodlin'" to the Havana-by-way-of-Tunis tones of "Orange Grey Shades."

The trio is very adept at what might be called jazz. "Plates" is a complex, almost Zappa-esque study, while "Scribble" is uhm-pah with a backbeat. Brainkiller and, indeed, most of the RareNoise roster is attempting to push music to the next level, one that is beyond genre specification and categorization. They do so with a solid sincerity and clear vision that is not so much intending to destroy older forms as to recast them.

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