One time at the ICA I saw a Swiss art film from the late 80s called “The Way Things Go”. It’s about a Rube Goldberg Machine. As you might expect, the film showcases a bunch of household objects as they bang into each other like a stack of dominoes, but this one has a twist: the chain of events is mostly a series of grotesque chemical reactions. There’s turpentine melting Styrofoam, garbage bags catching on fire and dripping molten plastic, and all other manner of noxious explosive trash you might find in an abandoned warehouse. The action of “The Way Things Go” is painstakingly slow at times, the mise en scene is drab and dreary, and you can only imagine what it must have smelt like in the room, but regardless I found myself watching intently for its entire 30-minute runtime. There was something serene about witnessing these ugly, toxic elements come together to create a masterfully executed final product, and I found myself rapt by hideous beauty.
Incidentally, that’s the same way I feel when I listen to NOTS.
NOTS is an all-female no-bullshit four piece outfit that hails from Memphis. And while they draw more from Wire’s post-punk march and Lydia Lunch’s no wave snot than the country and R&B that we’ve come to expect from their hometown, there is a dash of The Man in Black’s sardonic swagger amongst all the chaos. Vocalist Natalie Hoffman delivers her lyrics like a defiant, drunk teenager backtalking a stepparent, dropping lines so viscous you can practically feel her spitting in your face. She plays her guitar like she’s wringing its neck, choking out pounding, sloppy riffs and grinding, hypnotic leads, sometimes forgoing chords and melodies entirely in favor of reverb-soaked squeals and croaks, as on “Flourescent Sunset.” Alexandra Eastburn’s synthesizer adds to the cacophony, doling out sound textures that run the gamut from Twilight Zone creepiness (“Rat King”) to fax machine on the fritz (“New Structures”).
On the whole, NOTS’s music makes for an abrasive and confrontational listening experience, but it’s executed with so much confidence and such an unfettered middle finger to the world that it’s difficult not to be drawn in and stick around for the entire 34-minute runtime of Cosmetic. And with repeat listens, you’ll find that the album sticks around with you too. You’ll eventually catch on to the fact that there are some damn groovy basslines. At some point you’ll realize that you’re bobbing your head uncontrollably. And when you finally start deciphering Hoffman’s lyrics you’ll find there’s a lot of incisive social commentary. Sure, it’s not immediately gratifying, but isn’t it more fun to wonder just what the fuck you’ve gotten yourself into for a while before you realize you’ve been loving it the whole time?
