John Frusciante - Enclosure [Rock/Experimental]

Let me start this review by saying I was a big Chili Peppers fan growing up and later on I became a huge John Frusciante fan. I have been left a little cold from his last few releases, especially his EPs, but was still very much looking forward to this album.

Unfortunately, it seems that John remains stuck in this strange experimental phase which made his last two EPs, Letur-Lefr and Outsides, absolutely unbearable to listen to. I won't delve into why I dislike these two EPs, but in short I saw them as John taking some perfectly decent songs and ruining them with half-arsed rapping from RZA and Kinetic 9, and poorly produced beats. When asked about this album upon its release last week, John commented: "Enclosure, upon its completion, was the record which represented the achievement of all the musical goals I had been aiming at for the previous 5 years.”

I really hate to say this, but I disagree that this album represents much of an achievement. The first track, Shining Desert, opens up nicely enough with some cool African rhythms and fluttery Moroder-style synthesizers, but John's voice is so far back in the mix it sounds like he's trapped in a room at the other end of the studio. The drum machine that comes in on this track sounds cheap and seems like a desperate attempt to make the track as "different" or "interesting" as possible.

I hate to say this as well, but the first track sets the tone for pretty much the entire album. The next track, Sleep, is rather nice ballad at its most basic moments, but again it's when John starts to experiment with break-beats that everything falls apart. The track really starts to grate on me when suddenly the break-beat gives way to some swing rhythms, which suit the track well and provide some temporary relief. That is until the track changes, again, and John starts getting really, really, weird. His voice gets pitched right up amidst a barrage of drum n bass and creepy sounding synths. This is effectively three tracks in one, but none of them are enjoyable.

So there are a couple of tracks, three actually, that I do quite like on this album.

The third track, Run, kicks off with driving, fuzzy, distorted bass, psychedelic synth arpeggios and some genuinely interesting drum fills. It's still highly experimental but on this track it works very well, especially when the electro bass line kicks in and John's voice begins to swell and twist around the speakers. There's also a beautiful sounding electric piano in there which sounds absolutely gorgeous, and there's a very welcome absence of cheap drum machines and break-beats; I could actually say that this is one of my favourite tracks by John in a long time.

Another track I really like from Enclosure is the instrumental Clinch, which has all the markings of a classic Frusciante instrumental with some subtle, interesting and restrained experimentation which actually enhances the track rather than ruins it. There's some really cool noises from John's guitar, and when the drum n bass beat starts up I can't help but bob my head.

Zone is also a great track, we get one of John's best falsetto performances alongside some stumbling, off-kilter arpeggios which are backed up by a steady, assured bass line. The lyrics are meaningful, the sound modern, and the breakdown for this track has some excellent drum-machine work going on. It's at this point in the album where all the experimentation does come together very nicely indeed and I can see what John is actually aiming for with this record.

Sadly, that's where my enjoyment of the album ends. The last two tracks, Crowded and Excuses are some of the worst tracks I've heard so far this year. Crowded sounds, well, crowded; there's a boat-load of synth arpeggios, followed by a very quiet keyboard melody which sounds like a rejected Primus b-side, followed by break-beat which manages to sound as tedious and uninspired as possible. It actually sounds like it was produced in a hurry by a stoned 16-year old music student just so he'd have something to hand in. The track is fast but it's lack of ferocity means there's zero energy and it just doesn't work.

The last track is much the same, terrible production and, wait, what are you doing? Stop changing the tempo. John, I said sto... STOP CHANGING THE TEMPO! I really don't want to hear 3,4,5 different tempos in one song, especially when they change so abruptly. That's all I'm going to say on this track.

This is complicated, I do quite like the direction John Frusciante is heading in with his new orchestral, electronic style; I just feel that he’s not quite there yet. I have to respect this album on a number of points; wild experimentation in music is always a good thing, even if the end result is terrible, and there seems to be some real potential in the sound John is trying to achieve on Enclosure. The album was also launched into space, which I have to admit is pretty cool. That said, this album doesn't start, or end well, and I can't see myself re-visiting it any time soon.

[4/10]