The Operation of the Sonne

The Dead C had always worried away at the divide between song and improvisation, but The Operation Of The Sonne is the album where they blew everything apart. Coming after their early classic, Harsh ’70s Reality, The Operation Of The Sonne is raw with the confidence of a group that’ve discovered their raison d’être — to extend rock music by dismantling its fundamental structures. Bruce Russell’s hermetic recitation on “The Marriage Of Reason & Squalor” is caught up in a scrum of analogue synth and meandering guitar; by the side-long “Air,” recorded live at the Empire Tavern, everything’s reduced to component parts, the trio’s guitars channelling pure element. At the time, it seemed like The Dead C couldn’t get any freer or more elliptical, but they’d soon put paid to that misguided sentiment.