Dan Melchior Und Das Menace

The rank air of savage rock must float over Dan Melchior’s head. Because he kicked around his native England with Billy Childish and Holly Golightly before doing his own thing in New York, he frequently gets tagged as their accomplice. But this guy’s so much deeper. His new record for Siltbreeze, Assemblage Blues, shows him lashing out in bursts of hazy folk, often hilariously witty or in man-on-the-corner blurts, with squiggling loops and a helluva clatter underneath.  He’s a painter, so throwing it at the wall seems to be an appropriate method. Whatever the bed of sounds he makes, the tone is always just his own wry, and cantankerous, self, a bit like that dodgy Dylan. It’s hard to pin down, but it’s hardly boring.

Five years ago, Melchior and his wife, Letha, moved to Durham. She’s an artist and plays in his Das Menace. He prodigiously puts out his music on all manner of underground or damn-near-defunct medium: tapes, lathe cuts, the black wax. While he plays gigs in the area, Melchior’s long-established with a subterranean scene digging up the most damaged, effusive rock. He delivers some of his recent stuff by talking, a bit monotone and dark, like some sentry manning a post with a warning or snide joke. Where some of his recordings venture out in different directions, with Das Menace, it’s a full-blown stomping affair, rhythm section and all. And that’s why we follow an artist like Melchior in the first place: He’s mirroring back some things we see in ourselves, however distorted the image. There’s nothing brutish or vulgar about it. —Chris Toenes