Admittedly, I’m not so obsessed with Hugo Largo. I can even
admit that there are much better bands since these New York City legends of
ambient slowcore that are better at the genre, but few of them can claim to be
as influential as Hugo Largo, considering that there were barely any other
artists around during their active period that mirrored their style of music.
This is precisely why I was so gaga about them. They were a
novel entry during a time when the “ambient” term began being used as a way to
describe a newly blossoming genre of artists instead of one primary artist:
Brian Eno.
How appropriate that Hugo Largo was one of the first signed
to Eno’s new (then) record label called Opal, but how easy it must have been to
ink them considering their debut recording was produced by none other than
R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.
And that’s where I come in.
Because there was a good chunk of my life where I followed
pretty much everything R.E.M. did religiously, which means that I have copies
of Stipe’s sister’s band Hetch Hertchy and can even claim to possess an
uber-rare twelve-inch single of a solo recording for R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry,
listed as “Stashus Mute” on the credits.
But Stipe’s a bit more of a creative force-isn’t he? At
least that’s what I thought when I discovered that Eno’s new Opal Records was
re-releasing Hugo Largo’s Stipe produced e.p., with a few newly recorded tracks
tacked on to make it a proper full-length.
The sticker calls it “Son Of Drum,” but you’ll find the
title as Drum, a stunning
introduction to Stipe’s find. Hugo Largo was a quartet of New York City art student-types, probably the
kind of pretention that you imagine taking place in a town of such noted
importance as N.Y.C.
But fuck me if they didn’t make a hugely intriguing racket,
that is, if you consider a wide-ranging female vocalist like Largo ’s Mimi Goese to violinist Hahn Rowe
adding some eerie overtones. And on top of all of that potential artsy-fartsy
mess were a pair of bass guitarists, including one alternative MTV VJ Tim
Sommer, who had a tad bit of street cred by being a former member of Even Worse
with Thurston Moore as well being a seminal host of the punk radio show on
WNYU’s Noise The Show.
Still, with that entire MTV thing kind of lending an air of
privilege, it was way easy to poke holes in Hugo Largo’s plan to be considered
as “real” pop art.
Again, the proof is in this delicious pudding, thick with
swelling ebbs and unsettling flows. When Goese works her way into a cathartic
earful, it’s attention-grabbing. It also makes the listener carefully consider
the softer moments, looking for any hidden clues as to why the next measure
could turn into a vocal exercise.
Drum is one of those
rare examples where the farther you progress into the record, the better it
becomes. By the time the penultimate number hits, “Second Skin,” Hugo Largo
have reached a point where you can practically hear other bands taking their
cues from them, stalking out greater success in their wake, rendering the
originators into a cult status.
It is after Drum
final moments that you understand the power this band possessed, tapping into
the very real notion of “less is more” and exploring the loud and soft dynamics
that much heavier bands would examine in just a few short years after Hugo
Largo’s demise.
The intriguing thing is how Drums shows that the loud/soft dynamic words to an even more
powerful effect within the ambient realm, and Hugo Largo may have been the
precursor to the entire slowcore movement, something these art rock experiments
weren’t even anticipating when they called it quits so quickly.
Otherwise, Hugo Largo would have stuck around for a bit
longer, saving me from such a long-winded goodbye.
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