Continuing our new column here at End Hits, wherein we review every last bit of new vinyl that gets sent to us. You want your band’s new release to be covered here on the blog? If it’s on vinyl, send it in and we’ll review it.

Today we examine the new 12 inch from Olympia’s Nudity, out now on Portland-based Discourage Records. It’s a single, ostensibly, with one track per side. But both sides together run the length of an album—each track is 21 minutes long. The song is “Nightfeeders,” and it’s presented in two versions: the Nudity studio take on the a-side, and a remix by Concentrick on the b-side.

I think I first heard an excerpt of “Nightfeeders” about two years ago, on Nudity’s MySpace page. Even in abbreviated form, it was instantly memorable, with a polyrhythmic 3/4 guitar part looping around a 4/4 motorik pulse. Nudity sounded like the kind of band that doesn’t exist anymore, and maybe never did—jammers who knew how to rock, who didn’t get caught up in the technical end of things, who let their songs blow like grain over vast fields, to land, sprout, and grow wherever they would. Most importantly, they were fucking heavy—heavy enough to stop the brain-damaged hippie girl from her incessant twirling, enough to instill the fear in her. So yeah. If Nudity is a jam band, then they’ve rehabilitated the entire genre, which is no small feat. I don’t think they are a jam band, though. They are a hard rock band, with an epic song that’s different each time they play it.

I don’t know if each side of the 12 inch is designed to be listened to consecutively, since it is the same song, but having the two versions side by side emphasizes the fact that “Nightfeeders” isn’t something set in stone, that it may change altogether, that your mood and whatever substances you’re on is just as much a factor as what the band is doing. I saw Nudity play at Rotture a couple weeks back, short one guitar player, and “Nightfeeders” sounded awesome, but different. Not because a part was missing, but because that’s just the way it was. It was longer, drone-ier; it seemed like the vocal wasn’t as important, and other parts may have been jettisoned to focus on the groove.

The a-side version of “Nightfeeders” on this 12 inch never feels monotonous; it never achieves the meditative sameness of that jam I saw at Rotture. It’s a fully fledged song, beginning with an incantation of flute and sitar, before the looping guitar figure comes in. The band quickly kicks into high gear, locking into the motorik pulse as firmly as Neu! ever did, at times threatening to careen into Hawkwind space-case la-la land. But Nudity remains grounded, never losing sight of the horizon, never losing control of the machine that they’ve created and revved up. There may be a guitar solo here or there, but it’s not really a guitar solo; a vocal line may be uttered and some chord changes may happen. But it’s all about providing shape to this motion rather than telling a story. It’s a physical experience rather than a mental one. Eventually, it turns into a drum solo, and fades out—a somewhat disappointing end to an otherwise stellar track, but I suppose it had to end somewhere.

The b-side is Concentrick’s “remix” of “Nightfeeders,” which is part-remix, part-reconstruction, part-overdub. Concentrick is Tim Green from the Fucking Champs, and he recently put out an album of looping prog guitar under the Concentrick name that sounded like Steve Hackett and Frank Zappa caught in spin cycle in the washing machine. What Green does to “Nightfeeders” is artful, and sends it into the stratosphere. The opening flute and sitar incantation is increased in length, with Green’s zigzagging guitar plastered on top of it. When the band kicks in, Green turns them into a palette of paint, and dashes color here, guitar there, cymbal crash there, all over the canvas that is the basic track of the song. The result may be superior to the band take; it’s certainly scarier, and it takes you further. You never get lost, though, and the peak moments of ecstasy are loftier.

At any rate, with this 12 inch, Nudity has finally provided two definitive documents of their greatest achievement, and it’s on vinyl, no less. Vinyl is the way to experience it, from starting groove to ending groove without even the option of a pause button. There are 200 copies on purple vinyl and 600 on black; the covers were individually silk-screened. It’s well worth picking up if you have any small interest in krautrock, stoner rock, metal, psychedelia… Fuck. Let me try that again. It’s well worth picking up, unless you are a pussy.

Get it at K Records, Kill Rock Stars, or go buy it at Discourage Records here in town. I bet Exiled has it too.

Remember, End Hits loves vinyl. If you’re a label or band, send us your new vinyl for review! We’ll listen to it and put a review up on the blog. Send it to:
Portland Mercury
Attn: End Hits
605 NE 21st Ave., Suite 200
Portland, OR 97232