Consistency and continuity are what make the backbone of Water Damage. The Austin-based psych/drone-rock collective consists of noise rock veterans and experimental musicians from bands like Marriage, Expensive Shit, USA/Mexico, Black Eyes and Swans, some of whom are in their third decade. Water Damage functions more as a commune with variable line-ups from five to eleven people, usually with multiple bassists and drummers. Even though they are often compared to Tony Conrad’s collaboration with German krautrock legends Faust, Outside the Dream Syndicate, their understanding of motorik rhythm comes mainly from later Fugazi albums. That’s why their albums’ titles, like 2022’s Repeater or 2023’s 2 Songs, nod to the post-hardcore band from Washington D.C.
Their latest entry, Instruments, with four ‘reels’ clocking around twenty minutes each, deepens the formula of patterned heaviosity (“maximal repetition, minimal deviation,” as the group are fond of repeating) with even more patience and the addition of two fellow travellers, Patrick Shiroishi on baritone saxophone and David Grubbs on guitar. The opening ‘Reel 28’ is sluggish krautrock, where Shiroishi’s saxophone doesn’t fly around in free jazz style but instead helps to stabilise the whole foundation of the song and support the motorik. Although you can observe slight changes in tempo, as if the beast were coming alive, you wish the repetition would never cease and continue ad infinitum. The patience and intensity of how Water Damage explores one droning note or just a single rhythm recalls especially the work of France, although the French motorik rock outfit scoured the more medieval and folk side of drone music.
The intro of the following ‘Reel 25’ with undulating violin drones by Mari Maurice, aka more eaze, a core member of Water Damage, might evoke some long-forgotten Velvet Underground tape. Drums enter in the fourth minute like a revelation, accompanied by Grubbs’ nervous detuned guitar and the otherworldly sound of Thor Harris’ homemade electric viola, they are building to an invigorating cathartic dynamic. ‘Reel 32’ echoes the desert rock scene and the closing ‘Reel 27 (Slight Return)’ progresses almost to the stoner rock realm, carving its way to transcendence.
Water Damage tap into what music writer Harry Sword calls the “drone continuum” (in his book Monolithic Undertow), which includes moments when rock was infused with a love of repetition drawn from minimalism. Members of Water Damage are similarly “enablers of psychic transferral to a different mental plane”, as Sword writes, who summon the ritualistic power that stems from the community. This vital energy is deeply felt on Instruments and it doesn’t lose steam throughout the whole album. Just as you cannot measure the universe or infinity, you cannot measure single Water Damage records. What matters is that these communal jams on astral planes continue to expand.
