SUN CITY GIRLS "PIASA...DEVOURER OF MEN" (Abduction)

A soundtrack for an as of yet unreleased film. Being that 16 years have elapsed since the recording of this soundtrack i'd say it's likely the film is never going to actually see release. Too bad because judging from the stills it seems to be a monster movie about some sort of horrific Rodan-esque creature terrifying an island populace, all done in stop motion animation. And if the soundtrack is any indicator, it's probably totally fucked.

Unfortunately with the Sun City Girls you can't really use the music as an indicator for anything other than what they felt compelled to do. The various compositions might or might not reference what's happening on screen at any given time. If taken as a whole then the soundtrack makes more sense and that's why this album works so well as a proper release by SCG, rather than a commissioned project. It's certainly one of their more cohesive efforts, having a true sort of musical identity rather than jumping all the fuck over as many of their releases are wont to do. This music all seems given over to far east ethnic exploration, bringing to mind China and the Asiatic areas specifically. Whether that's SCG's actual intent is beyond me; i'm not a world traveler nor an expert on indigenous folk musics so all i have to go on is the general feel i get and the images that music seems to evoke. I see streams of color and a dense city plaza drowned in busy moving bodies, crowds and sweat and throngs. Smoke rising from side-alley bazaars and hungry children leering at you with knives in hand and malice in thought. The stench of shit and death and cruelty hanging in the air. The very idea of foreign-ness, the feeling of not belonging, of being totally out of your element and thrust into something dirty and weird and scary. If i let the film stills enter into it then i'm reminded a bit of the native landscapes of King Kong, a dark and strange place where wonders previously forbidden to modern eyes lurk behind walls and demand sacrifice to be summoned up.

I'm impressed that SCG were able to conjure up all of this, but not at all surprised. This is an amazing group that has always shown boundless creativity and i wholeheartedly feel that any album of theirs is worthy of purchase and exploration, no matter how fucked up or uncompromising. They're simply too good at what they do to have a single uninteresting record. Maybe the film will actually see release someday but until then this soundtrack is cinematic enough. The images it's crafted in my imagination might even be better than the film itself.