04 August 2025

MOTHERFUCKERS JMB & CO. – Music Excitement Action! Beauty (2025, LP, Via Parigi)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Via Parigi

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl, 300 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, White Transparent Vinyl, 200 copies

Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition, Digipak, 500 copies

Release Date: 13 June 2025

“Meet Motherfuckers JMB & Co! J is for Jim, M is for Marc, B is for Brian. Motherfuckers is for…well, you’ll have to hear that for yourself” (Bandcamp).

Emerging from the fertile underground of the DC/Maryland/Virginia experimental scene, Motherfuckers JMB & Co! is a power trio built on decades of sonic exploration and raw, intuitive chemistry. With roots that stretch from Animal Collective and GWAR to obscure free-form radio shows and deep-cut psych obsessions, Jim, Marc, and Brian channel their eclectic histories into a heady brew of groove-heavy drone, ritualistic psychedelia, and unhinged improvisation.

“Brian Weitz (hurdy gurdy) has spent 25 years crafting sound as Geologist in the ground-breaking quartet Animal Collective. Jim Thomson (drums) has been in scores of bands, from helping found Richmond art-metal legends GWAR, to jamming instrumentals in SST alums Alter-Natives (a fitting forebear to JMB’s vocal-less jaunts), to driving the spirited dance-punk of Time Is Fire. Marc Minsker (bass, guitar, harmonium) has made music since the early 90s, initially in Third Eye Lounge (who backed legendary improviser Eugene Chadbourne), and later in myriad partnerships around the mid-Atlantic region”…

And if you wonder about their name, this is just Weitz’s homage to German psych-groove band Xhol Caravan’s 1972 album “Motherfuckers GmbH & Co.” Their debut LP “Music Excitement Action Beauty” is exactly what it says: seven sprawling slabs of psych-drenched drone, hypnotic rhythm, and blown-out beauty, improvised and recorded in a single smoke-filled ritual session, edited with cosmic precision, and stitched together like some lysergic fever dream you don’t want to wake up from. Here’s how it plays out: It starts with “Rise”, a slow exhale of feedback and tone to pull you gently out of sleep and into some other dimension. The rhythm engine kicks in with “Breakers Part 1”, Jim Thomson lays down a no-nonsense beat while Marc Minsker locks into a fluid, looping bass pulse. Brian Weitz’s hurdy-gurdy spirals in like psychedelic fog, clinging to the groove like vines on concrete. Have you ever wondered how Surf music could be as heard from the inside of a lava lamp? “Strange Planet” it’s hypnotic and weirdly sunny, like a lost tape from a Martian garage band! The comedown is over, “Breakers Part 2” hits like a motorik rocket. Think Neu! chasing ghosts through a tunnel of light. Propulsive, distorted, and wired with a kind of manic grace. This is the trio at full throttle. Unbelievable track! What comes next is a patchwork of noise, texture, and disorientation entitled “Studio B”. Less of a “song,” more like falling backward through a reel-to-reel tape machine while the room spins. The groove returns but slower, and sweatier with “Metro 29”. Thomson’s drums stutter like bad brakes, and the bass line limps along beside Weitz’s ghostly melodies. It’s haunted lounge music from a burned-out city… that simple! “Keep the Temp” is the final transmission. It opens with a dub siren warning shot before launching into a wild-eyed stomp that rides the edge of collapse. Everything speeds up until it finally breaks apart and burns out, like the tape machine finally gave up the ghost… Raw, free, and fiercely uncommercial, “Music Excitement Action Beauty” is the kind of record that reminds you music can still surprise, if you’re listening in the right places. TimeLord Michalis