Trenchcoat Manifesto
Which Moment
Dharmajava Records

When I fired up Which Moment by local multimedia performance art duo Trenchcoat Manifesto, I had just finished consuming the Johnny Depp-led Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas... and a copious amount of double-distilled beverage in the process. This is important for three reasons: 1) the TC experience recalls Thompson and Burroughs (“Words of Advice” comes to mind); 2) who other than Thompson and Burroughs would appreciate my condition?; 3) irreverent narratives and the contemplation of Austro-German Marxism and Carl Jung always goes better with single malt.

Which Moment is a collection of short atmospheric vignettes exploring the uniquely American spin on Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces—the archetypal hero vs. villain mythology and the transformative journey therein. It just so happens that the scenery features the dark-and-bountiful history of Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood. And it bears out that TC masterminds Richard Hearn and Tom Adams met in Tremont; Richard’s family history in Tremont reaches back 4 generations.

And the more I listened, the only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is a heavy, foreboding feel to the disc--mostly as it relates to the meter and the vocals. It was as if both Hearn and Adams decided that time was running out and that they should both do something monstrous, as Thompson once said, before they die. They were monstrously successful. The mood is thick, intense, gripping... intriguing.

Does it make for essential listening? Way beyond that, my friends. Tracks like “The Grandeur of This Wasteland,” the leadoff track “Where’s Jack?” and “Unmolested” feature eloquent and trance-like visceral vistas--hardly the stuff of rose-colored glasses, but certainly transporting the listener to somewhere just beyond Jung’s collective conscious and the TV show, “The Outer Limits.”

Call it black-and-white film noir for your ears. Clocking in at just under 63 minutes, Which Moment really is irreverent cinema for the skull as much as it is Chicken Soup for the Black-Wearing Postmod’s Soul.

As your attorney, I advise you to consume it heavily.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Peter Chakerian peterATcoolcleveland.com (:divend:)