Image Credit – Christopher Flack

Documenta was, “Started as a one one off project but slowly expanded like a bad disorganized universe, Documenta will produce 18 original songs plus a few covers then finish…..
“three chords good, two chords better, one chord best”…”

I had first heard about Joe Greene and his Documenta “Drome Pop”, through the good graces of François Sky. François has a refreshingly, no-nonsense approach to suffering fools gladly, as a rule his barometer is usually right on the money. Joe has proved no exception to this rule.

Around the same time, I encountered the intriguing video for the track ‘Idle Hands‘ – this transformed Documenta from a whisper into a bona fide, must see proposition.

I was then delighted to find that Documenta would be appearing at this year’s Distorted Perspectives Festival in Letterkenny, headlined by San Francisco “repeat-o rockers”, Moon Duo – “placing Donegal in an international context rather than on the periphery”.

Documenta’s second LP, is the perversely titled ‘Drone Pop #1’…

‘Idle Hands’, opens in solemn blanketing waves, the hushed, honeyed vocal, overcome with building, crashing guitar breakers, St Jerome’s warning eschewed, in favour of an Apache war cry; ‘Spanish Artist’, weaves it’s mystical drum intro magic, an impassioned, floating Iberian daydream, all aboard Robbie Krieger’s, ‘Caravan’ – with the ghost of John Lennon, lyrically, ‘In The Works’; ‘Horror Vacui i’, is a kenophobic delight, a washing, oscillatory mind map, “in space no one can hear you scream”; ‘Selene’, emerges embryonically, as if from a clawing lunar fog, a swelling, requited paean to gothic overlordship, a mastery of subterranean undercurrents…

‘Love As A Ghost’, echoes the haunting François de La Rochefoucauld maxim, “True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen”, it shimmers with an elusive, Cocteau-like, submersive ethereal grandeur; ‘Chiaroscuro’, perhaps my favourite word, is impeccably worked here, a contrastive balancing act, clear bright notes, ring the changes, the obscure, fading in compositional harmony; ‘Horror Vacui ii’, continues it’s conjoined twin’s, experimental drone exposition, a faintly aboriginal hum, expanding with concentric, undulative enveloping; ‘The Day My Heart Stood Still’, swathes with Madchester rhythmic revelry, the cardiac arresting hypnotic groove, buffets with nimbus cloud strafing spirals…

‘Drone Pop #1’ is an intelligent literate foray, a rich and expansive, magpie’s eye treasure trove of wonders, the romance of a Byronic “Grand Tour” for a disposed generation.

Recorded over four days at Start Together Studio in Belfast by Ben McAuley and the band, it also features additional production from David Holmes on, ‘Love As A Ghost’.

Released on the Satsumas Home Entertainments label and available in Limited Red/Green Colour Vinyl + Insert + DL Code, with artwork by Rinky. Pre-order now at the Touch Sensitive Records shop.