Simon Hanes: Gargantua

Two quotes come to mind in the wake of Simon Hanes' Gargantua. The first is from Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction: "Camera got them images / Camera got them all / Nothing's shocking... " The second, often attributed to William S. Burroughs: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." Taken together, they suggest a world where boundaries dissolve and meaning becomes fluid. Hanes both affirms and challenges that premise in this sprawling, provocative work.

Gargantua is written for an unconventional large ensemble: three drum kits, three electric basses, three trombones, three French horns, and three voices. The sheer scale of the instrumentation hints at excess, but the result is far from chaotic. Hanes, an acolyte of downtown icon John Zorn, has built a reputation for stylistic range, composing for his Italian soundtrack—inspired ensemble Tredici Bacci, the experimental surf project Tsons of Tsunami, the thrash/improv outfit Trigger, and a variety of contemporary classical contexts. Here, he brings those disparate threads into a single, ambitious statement.

The music operates like an intricate collage; layered, deliberate and densely referential. Hanes draws inspiration from a journey through Norway, the volcanic force of Iceland and Hawaii, and François Rabelais's 16th-century epic Gargantua and Pantagruel, a once-scandalous satire of giants and excess. To this he adds fragments of Buddhist texts, passages from Dante's Inferno, baroque gestures, minimalist repetition and the raw energy of rock and metal. On paper, the combination seems unwieldy; in practice, it recalls the eclectic logic of Frank Zappa's ensembles or Zorn's Naked City band, where unlikely elements cohere through force of vision.

Across the album's ten tracks, there are no featured soloists. The emphasis is squarely on composition and collective execution. The fifteen musicians function as a single, shifting organism, navigating Hanes' abrupt transitions and layered structures. The journey is global and temporal: ancient philosophies collide with modern noise, sacred texts meet irreverent outbursts. "Submit to the Fabulosity," for instance, blends disco-inflected rhythms with percussive density, while its vocalists deliver a barrage of profane invective. Elsewhere, "Moirai" offers a moment of fragile, almost sacred vocal harmony, only to be shattered by the abrasive intensity of "Lacerated by a Flying Shard."

Hanes moves freely between extremes, baroque intricacy and heavy-metal force, serene minimalism and explosive noise, linking Stravinsky to Led Zeppelin, alpine folk traditions to contemporary experimentalism. The result is music that feels both overwhelming and meticulously constructed, a constant oscillation between order and rupture.

Gargantua is not an easy listen, nor is it meant to be. It is a demanding, immersive work that unfolds more fully with repeated exposure. What initially registers as excess reveals itself, over time, as a carefully shaped landscape of contrasts. In the end, Hanes doesn't simply argue that "nothing is shocking," he suggests that meaning still emerges from the collision of ideas, that even in a world without clear boundaries, form and purpose can be forged.

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