photo by Daniel Roland Tierney // "The road less traveled / Was a nightmare / Human voices travel / And they found me / You sightseer / You hide in cuneiform you’re so shrewd..."
The blistering indie rock tropicalia of "The Sightseer" by Human Potential [the solo project of Andrew Becker; an award-winning filmmaker and former drummer for both Dischord Records’ band, Medications, and Brooklyn provocateurs, Screens] is so musically / historically vast and full frontal that it injects you with art that feels as meticulously drawn as it does ferally punk. The sense is kind of spiritual meets explosive, whether you are absorbing the kind of East Coast funk punk bass lines, the xylophone-esque ambience and potent drums that feel like a collision between Afro-Brazilian rhythms and reggae punk, the exacting / stabbing stair stepping art punk electric guitar lines, the dreamy new age sunshine, the beautiful bohemian acidity and Becker's beautifully freeing audacious vocal countenance that feels more like a holy roller possession than a musical performance. There is a lot to take in and, oddly or maybe not oddly, I thought of such disparate musical acts / artists as Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads and The Police or maybe some kind of amalgam of them all dusted with the Boyoyo Boys!
That's all I got but I feel spent just tapping my computer keys and riffing while listening to this amazing track.
[This song imagines a Michael Bay production of a film that poses the heretofore unconceived, never answered and potentially inconsequential question, "What if Paul Bowles had Instagram?" Without getting too fastuous, the conceit loosely correlates to a Marshall McLuhan quote I read some time ago: "One of the many flips of our time is that the electric information environment returns man to the condition of the most primitive prober and hunter. Privacy invasion is now one of our biggest knowledge industries."]
[“Eel Sparkles” is the seventh release by Human Potential - the solo project of Andrew Becker; an award-winning filmmaker and former drummer for both Dischord Records’ band, Medications, and Brooklyn provocateurs, Screens.]
LYRICS
The road less traveled
Was a nightmare
Human voices travel
And they found me
You sightseer
You hide in cuneiform you’re so shrewd
Hey sightseer
Was a nightmare
Human voices travel
And they found me
You sightseer
You hide in cuneiform you’re so shrewd
Hey sightseer
Try on your uniform
A man that walks on his hands will not prosper
Superstition keeps horror down under the floor
You sightseer
Tsetse flies and unicorns you’re so cute
Hey sightseer
Try on your uniform
Or hang it up and marry me
Where the birds watch the seasons, exit signs and sobriquets
Spectacle amnesia makes every moment a water mark
Hey sightseer
You’re wild and dashing, yeah you’re so gold
You sightseer
Dying in your uniform
Or hang it up and marry me
MORE LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
A man that walks on his hands will not prosper
Superstition keeps horror down under the floor
You sightseer
Tsetse flies and unicorns you’re so cute
Hey sightseer
Try on your uniform
Or hang it up and marry me
Where the birds watch the seasons, exit signs and sobriquets
Spectacle amnesia makes every moment a water mark
Hey sightseer
You’re wild and dashing, yeah you’re so gold
You sightseer
Dying in your uniform
Or hang it up and marry me
MORE LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed):
[In spring of 2025, Becker crammed a Tascam 488 and a Mark Shippy signature balalaika into his vintage Givenchy bindle and set sail for the rugged steppes of Inner Mongolia. There, he hoped to track down and solicit the tutelage of legendary baritone, Ariunbataar Ganbaatar, and thus, transmogrify the foundational gain of his sonic effluvium.]
[But, just days into the journey, the vessel he was aboard was hijacked by a revolutionary group led by the wayward son of Larry Drake. For days the crew and passengers were forced to watch 70mm prints of “Dr. Giggles” while consuming only fermented horse milk and Teddy Grahams dipped in ham salad. Eventually, after deciding another medium of entertainment was needed, Drake Jr. conscripted Becker into performing, not only live improvised “Giggles” scores, but rigorous performances during daily meals.]
[After the hostages were liberated by surviving members of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior incident, Becker found himself back in his Los Angeles kutcha, armed with an array of new ideas that he would engineer into, “Eel Sparkles”.]
[The record pulls strategically from the pop song canon, while delving further into the sonic experimentation stippled throughout his previous works. “Sun-E Corporation Teenage Anthem” rides the glam tram to Barry White’s atrium, while “Do You Remember Albert?” surfs a pungent wave of distorted marimba into the iniquitous den of some Spirit Airlines glowstickerie. “Practice Songs For The Unloved” engenders sloppy, poppy porridge to trickle into the narrowest of earholes while “The Sightseer” sprinkles skronk soot over a punky funk thrust. Throughout, Becker’s lyrics weave tales of murderous movie stars, ghost arsonists, death starved relatives, Hardy Fox, Tsetse Flies and unicorns.]
[Ultimately, “Eel Sparkles” fills that long glaring void nestled between Phil Niblock’s “Nothing to Look at Just a Record” and J Rock’s “Streetwize”; a beguiling kaleidoscopic concoction designed to enhance fundamental sensations and effectuate sophisticated elation. Not unlike being washed in the cool, shallow wake of the Euphrates, “Eel Sparkles” clears out your every corpuscle with an unsullied sonic transfusion, creating a menagerie of sudden and ecstatic rebirth.]
[But, just days into the journey, the vessel he was aboard was hijacked by a revolutionary group led by the wayward son of Larry Drake. For days the crew and passengers were forced to watch 70mm prints of “Dr. Giggles” while consuming only fermented horse milk and Teddy Grahams dipped in ham salad. Eventually, after deciding another medium of entertainment was needed, Drake Jr. conscripted Becker into performing, not only live improvised “Giggles” scores, but rigorous performances during daily meals.]
[After the hostages were liberated by surviving members of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior incident, Becker found himself back in his Los Angeles kutcha, armed with an array of new ideas that he would engineer into, “Eel Sparkles”.]
[The record pulls strategically from the pop song canon, while delving further into the sonic experimentation stippled throughout his previous works. “Sun-E Corporation Teenage Anthem” rides the glam tram to Barry White’s atrium, while “Do You Remember Albert?” surfs a pungent wave of distorted marimba into the iniquitous den of some Spirit Airlines glowstickerie. “Practice Songs For The Unloved” engenders sloppy, poppy porridge to trickle into the narrowest of earholes while “The Sightseer” sprinkles skronk soot over a punky funk thrust. Throughout, Becker’s lyrics weave tales of murderous movie stars, ghost arsonists, death starved relatives, Hardy Fox, Tsetse Flies and unicorns.]
[Ultimately, “Eel Sparkles” fills that long glaring void nestled between Phil Niblock’s “Nothing to Look at Just a Record” and J Rock’s “Streetwize”; a beguiling kaleidoscopic concoction designed to enhance fundamental sensations and effectuate sophisticated elation. Not unlike being washed in the cool, shallow wake of the Euphrates, “Eel Sparkles” clears out your every corpuscle with an unsullied sonic transfusion, creating a menagerie of sudden and ecstatic rebirth.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
https://soundcloud.com/humanpotentialmusic
https://humanpotential.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/humanpotentialsingalong
https://www.facebook.com/humanpotentialmusic
The Chicken Wheel will take you to the AP Go Fund Me- and any amount is so appreciated!
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://soundcloud.com/humanpotentialmusic
https://humanpotential.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/humanpotentialsingalong
https://www.facebook.com/humanpotentialmusic
https://whatdelicate.com/recordings/human-potential
“Eel Sparkles” is the seventh release by Human Potential - the solo project of Andrew Becker; an award-winning filmmaker and former drummer for both Dischord Records’ band, Medications, and Brooklyn provocateurs, Screens.
In spring of 2025, Becker crammed a Tascam 488 and a Mark Shippy signature balalaika into his vintage Givenchy bindle and set sail for the rugged steppes of Inner Mongolia. There, he hoped to track down and solicit the tutelage of legendary baritone, Ariunbataar Ganbaatar, and thus, transmogrify the foundational gain of his sonic effluvium.
But, just days into the journey, the vessel he was aboard was hijacked by a revolutionary group led by the wayward son of Larry Drake. For days the crew and passengers were forced to watch 70mm prints of “Dr. Giggles” while consuming only fermented horse milk and Teddy Grahams dipped in ham salad. Eventually, after deciding another medium of entertainment was needed, Drake Jr. conscripted Becker into performing, not only live improvised “Giggles” scores, but rigorous performances during daily meals.
After the hostages were liberated by surviving members of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior incident, Becker found himself back in his Los Angeles kutcha, armed with an array of new ideas that he would engineer into, “Eel Sparkles”.
The record pulls strategically from the pop song canon, while delving further into the sonic experimentation stippled throughout his previous works. “Sun-E Corporation Teenage Anthem” rides the glam tram to Barry White’s atrium, while “Do You Remember Albert?” surfs a pungent wave of distorted marimba into the iniquitous den of some Spirit Airlines glowstickerie. “Practice Songs For The Unloved” engenders sloppy, poppy porridge to trickle into the narrowest of earholes while “The Sightseer” sprinkles skronk soot over a punky funk thrust. Throughout, Becker’s lyrics weave tales of murderous movie stars, ghost arsonists, death starved relatives, Hardy Fox, Tsetse Flies and unicorns.
Ultimately, “Eel Sparkles” fills that long glaring void nestled between Phil Niblock’s “Nothing to Look at Just a Record” and J Rock’s “Streetwize”; a beguiling kaleidoscopic concoction designed to enhance fundamental sensations and effectuate sophisticated elation. Not unlike being washed in the cool, shallow wake of the Euphrates, “Eel Sparkles” clears out your every corpuscle with an unsullied sonic transfusion, creating a menagerie of sudden and ecstatic rebirth.
“Eel Sparkles” is the seventh release by Human Potential - the solo project of Andrew Becker; an award-winning filmmaker and former drummer for both Dischord Records’ band, Medications, and Brooklyn provocateurs, Screens.
In spring of 2025, Becker crammed a Tascam 488 and a Mark Shippy signature balalaika into his vintage Givenchy bindle and set sail for the rugged steppes of Inner Mongolia. There, he hoped to track down and solicit the tutelage of legendary baritone, Ariunbataar Ganbaatar, and thus, transmogrify the foundational gain of his sonic effluvium.
But, just days into the journey, the vessel he was aboard was hijacked by a revolutionary group led by the wayward son of Larry Drake. For days the crew and passengers were forced to watch 70mm prints of “Dr. Giggles” while consuming only fermented horse milk and Teddy Grahams dipped in ham salad. Eventually, after deciding another medium of entertainment was needed, Drake Jr. conscripted Becker into performing, not only live improvised “Giggles” scores, but rigorous performances during daily meals.
After the hostages were liberated by surviving members of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior incident, Becker found himself back in his Los Angeles kutcha, armed with an array of new ideas that he would engineer into, “Eel Sparkles”.
The record pulls strategically from the pop song canon, while delving further into the sonic experimentation stippled throughout his previous works. “Sun-E Corporation Teenage Anthem” rides the glam tram to Barry White’s atrium, while “Do You Remember Albert?” surfs a pungent wave of distorted marimba into the iniquitous den of some Spirit Airlines glowstickerie. “Practice Songs For The Unloved” engenders sloppy, poppy porridge to trickle into the narrowest of earholes while “The Sightseer” sprinkles skronk soot over a punky funk thrust. Throughout, Becker’s lyrics weave tales of murderous movie stars, ghost arsonists, death starved relatives, Hardy Fox, Tsetse Flies and unicorns.
Ultimately, “Eel Sparkles” fills that long glaring void nestled between Phil Niblock’s “Nothing to Look at Just a Record” and J Rock’s “Streetwize”; a beguiling kaleidoscopic concoction designed to enhance fundamental sensations and effectuate sophisticated elation. Not unlike being washed in the cool, shallow wake of the Euphrates, “Eel Sparkles” clears out your every corpuscle with an unsullied sonic transfusion, creating a menagerie of sudden and ecstatic rebirth.
Human Potential, Los Angeles, solo project of Andrew Becker, filmmaker, drummer, Dischord Records band, Medications, Screens, "The Sightseer" single, 7th album "Eel Sparkles", art rock, indie rock, art punk, blendo rock,
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