Diamonds & Rust: Disharmonic Orchestra – Expositionsprophylaxe (Um, Gesundheit)

[Album artwork by Martin Messner and Patrick Klopf]

Perhaps you’ve noticed by now that these Diamonds & Rust treatments have a tendency to dip into a sort of narcissistic form of self-interest when generated by yours truly. Why am I even part of the narrative when the smarter move involves writing about records as if they exist in a vacuum? Yes, that’s ideal for those who prefer things that get right to the point, but it’s also ideal for new releases that haven’t really had an opportunity to properly stew, simmer and develop a deeper connection. D&R exists to laud albums not only due to their perceived musical awesomeness and status as classics, but also thanks to their impact on metal’s timeline AND on us as individual listeners. So, ideally, approaching from a more personal angle has the potential to open beneficial doors. At least I hope.

Enter, stage left: Disharmonic Orchestra’s debut full-length Expositionsprophylaxe, the 37th release from Nuclear Blast that first collided with our planet all the way back on April 5th, 1990.

Building a case AGAINST Expositionsprophylaxe as a D&R candidate:

Firstly, despite their length of service and the fact that they’ve managed to eke out five full-lengths across nearly four decades of on-again / off-again life, the three Klagenfurters who make up this odd squad continue to endure life as a band in relative obscurity. And even if you already happen to be familiar with this band’s unique flight, I’m guessing you’d offer up their sophomore effort, 1992’s notably adventurous and great Not To Be Undimensional Conscious, to be the clear Disharmonic Orchestra pinnacle.

Second, a quick bit of online research will uncover a handful of lukewarm reviews for Expositionsprophylaxe, labeling it “[not] fully realized most of the time” (Sputnik), “a pretty simple and at times noisy take on the genre” (Prog Archives), and complaints about “the mixing is mostly shite” (M-A).

To the first point, I totally get it the Not To Be Undimensional Conscious vote: It’s a whirlwind of early whatthefuckery swirled around a formative design of death metal that explicitly landed Disharmonic the ~AVANT-GARDE METAL~ tag to be mutated to previously unimaginable lengths moving forward. Simply put, It is a great record.

And as for the Negative Nancies throwing shade toward Expositions, I’d be curious to find out how much of that is coming from: 1) Individuals who prefer D.O.’s non-death metalled / more progressive years, or 2) Those who aren’t very keen on the rawness that was going down in extreme metal circles circa ’89 / ‘90.

Building a case FOR Expositionsprophylaxe as a D&R candidate:

It is awesome.

Boom, done. Please enjoy the spiked Baja blast in the lobby. And for those who appreciate having their eyes slaughtered whilst taking a family trip down Memory Ln., please also consider the following Disharmonic dissertation… The following Disshartation… Ooo, that has the word ‘shart’ in it. Please consider the following extensive collection of sentences.

Right. The first thing that should probably be addressed is an understanding about where Expositionsprophylaxe belongs on our timeline, because that specific interval in metal’s life was actually rather exquisite—a magical span where many of us interested in extreme metal could pick up virtually anything from labels such as Earache, Deaf / Peaceville, Nuclear Blast or Wild Rags and walk away happier than a puppy with two peters. Of course, that wouldn’t last (see Mighty Force), but those early releases were largely indestructible, and many of them were (either directly or indirectly) as indebted to Discharge and Siege as they were to the thrash and death/thrash that lead up to the death metal explosion in 1989. The result: the wondrous world of GRINDING DEATH, which, even if we only take a snapshot from around 1987 and through 1990, produced the following stack of grinding head pulverizers that still stand the test of time today:

Not quiiiiiite there proto death/grind:
» Napalm Death – Scum (July 1987) Earache
» Unseen Terror – Human Error (1987) Earache
» Bolt Thrower – In Battle There Is No Law! (June 1988) Vinyl Solution

Now we’re cookin’ with gas:
» Carcass – Reek of Putrefaction (June 1988) Earache
» Napalm Death – From Enslavement to Obliteration (Sep 1988) Earache
» Repulsion – Horrified (May 1989) Necrosis Records / Earache
» Defecation – Purity Dilution (1989) Nuclear Blast
» Righteous Pigs – Live and Learn (1989) Nuclear Blast
» Blood – Impulse to Destroy (Aug 1989) Wild Rags
» Carcass – Symphonies of Sickness (Nov 1989) Earache
» Macabre – Grim Reality / Gloom (1989) Vinyl Solution
» Bolt Thrower – Realm of Chaos (Oct 1989) Earache
» Terrorizer – World Downfall (Nov 1989) Earache
» Atrocity (US) – Infected (1990) Metalcore
» Nuclear Death – Bride of Insect (1990) Wild Rags
» Prophecy of Doom – Acknowledge the Confusion Master (1990) Deaf / Peaceville
» Righteous Pigs – Stress Related (1990) Nuclear Blast
» Disharmonic Orchestra – Expositionsprophylaxe (Apr 1990) Nuclear Blast
» Filthy Christians – Mean (Apr 1990) Earache (kind of a crap album, if I’m honest)
» Napalm Death – Harmony Corruption (Jul 1990) Earache (mostly death metal at this point, but that grinding scoot is still there)
» Impetigo – Ultimo mondo cannibale (Nov 1990) Wild Rags

I was on board with pretty much everything I could get my hands on from the above list, thanks to shared duties between myself and a crew of equally deranged colleagues, but my discovery of Disharmonic Orchestra somehow felt… more personal. Even though I was happily up to my eyeballs in metal research at the time, I was also well enough on my way as an “all music is fair game” enthusiast that I often felt out of place most anywhere, even amidst fellow EXTREME MUSIC FOR EXTREME PEOPLE. Flipping over Expositionsprophylaxe and seeing a band photo that could just as easily have been torn from an old Grand Funk Railroad album, though? INTEREST PIQUED. Trying to process song titles like “Quintessentially Unnecessary Institution” and “Disappeared with Hermaphrodite Choirs” alongside three fellows that incorporated sport coats, glasses and watches into their scheme in lieu of, say, Napalm Death or Carcass shirts really made me wonder what to expect. Given this, though, and the fact that the album cover was equally unconventional / puzzling (a photo made by drummer Martin Messner, with the umbrella addition provided by guitarist / vocalist Patrick Klopf), I couldn’t help but feel as if I’d just encountered some wonderfully daft kindred spirits.

In the end, that instinct actually proved to be pretty on point. In some long forgotten early interview, Patrick Klopf cited not only Voivod as a major Disharmonic inspiration, but NoMeansNo to boot (if you haven’t already, please listen to Wrong), as well as asserting band fandom for crews such as Soundgarden and Faith No More, the latter of which thundered its way into the hearts of more than just a few of metal’s more adventurous followers. In truth, 1989 was just sort of that way, offering up all sorts of genre-defying music for any and all music freaks to assimilate. So, while I had no way to prove it, the potential was there for the Disharmonic dudes to not only love The Real Thing, Louder Than Love and Wrong, but other ’89 plot twists such as the self-titled Mudhoney, Bullet Lavolta’s The Gift, and even De La Soul’s bonafide classic Three Feet High and Rising, and that felt… weirdly uplifting and connective.

That being said, you really can’t tell such things just by spinning Expositionsprophylaxe on its own. It does, however, underscore a very distinct “out of left field” sense that set the band apart from their peers. The record is dirty and wonderfully raw—damn-near hurtling straight off the tracks at times—and at no point does the listener ever stray too far away from a fully skankable groove, which was one of the definitive calling cards in much of that early movement. In that sense, Expositions comes across like an ideal collision between the raw intensity of Blood’s defining Impulse to Destroy and Terrorizer’s thoroughly danceable World Downfall.

A cut like “Sick Dishonourableness” slides out of the chute with a slow(ish), head-bobbing strut. Klopf’s vocals scrape as if a stainless steel grater were pulled across his chords, and by about 45s in, the tune slips into its first dash of unconventionality, suddenly sklip-sklap-a-doodling like a tank scatting along to a hard bob hit. A darker and heavier turn hits around 1:15, and not even the most primitive production can keep bassist Herwig Zamernik from bubbling like an animated witch’s cauldron. Disharmonic was and remains to this day a consummate power trio, with each member forever ready to engage in close quarter combat with equal awareness of shared space and room for individual breakouts—the longer cuts such as this fully embrace that motif. FULL SPEED hits at the halfway point, with the only semblance of true order being provided by drummer Martin Messner insistence on that notably snappy swing. That disgusting little riff flight at 3:50 still makes me feel powerful enough to break through a brick wall. OHH, YEAHHH!!!

And what sort of grinding death metal band would opt to provide an instrumental track on a record like this? Like, one that isn’t just an intro? (Side note: this album’s intro, “Introphylaxe,” is one of the best in the business.) Granted, this wasn’t completely unique to Disharmonic (see early Macabre), but it’s just not something that happened very often because… Well, I’m guessing it’s because most bands in this particular realm figured instrumentals were mostly reserved for Shrapnel Records bands, prog nerds and show-offs? For their part, Disharmonic managed to do so in a way that embodied Rush if Rush was actually a trio of chimps attempting to crash-land a malfunctioning space shuttle as it ripped back into our atmosphere at an alarming and flaming rate. And sure, let’s just go ahead and name the song after the pituitary gland.

MY FELLOW JILTED GRIND MUTANTS, THERE’S EVEN A FLIPPING BREAKUP SONG ON THIS RECORD. And fittingly, “Disharmonisation” opens with a strangely mournful, grinding riff that’s immediately punctuated with Klopf howling “WHAAAAAAA” before it all slips into a crucial swagger. The three Orchestrians bounce and pound and suffer in unison as Klopf laments:

“I still remember the days we met
I was wondering how far I could get
The days were numbered, the nights were spent
The end was so strange, I couldn’t understand”

Then… Actually, what in the absolute blue fuck are they even trying to lay down right around 1:50? It’s an almost jazzy breakout with the pedal pushed straight through the metal before suddenly dropping into one of the more punishing moments of the record right at its midpoint. Messner’s penchant for absolutely pummeling the kit takes center stage here, and the results are leveling.

“I’VE. GOT. YOU. UN. DER. MY. SKIN.”, belts Klopf, and then the song spends the remainder of its duration basically dumping on the mopey “Everybody Hurts” / R.E.M. modus operandi by instead opting to blister whatever part of the brain is responsible for heartbreak in some form of spumy sulphuric acid. Broken heart, this is WARRRRRRRR.

Of course, by today’s standards a record like Expositionsprophylaxe doesn’t sound terribly intrepid, but amidst its peers in 1990 you could already hear their progressive face challenging for a stronger foothold—something that would certainly be raised to the Nth degree with 1992’s Not to Be Undimensional Conscious. But all these prehistoric grinding death peddlers were boldly going where no one had gone before back then, and Disharmonic progressed faster and further than all of them. When asked to describe their overall sound shortly after the release of Expositions, Patrick Klopf told a rag that’s long since been buried by time and dust the following:

“We play festered offals causing braincells decomposing, flesh scorching, non-violent deathcore without stupid lyrics.”

Obviously ‘deathcore’ was a VERY different beast in 1990 compared to whatever passes as such in the modern age [ppphhhhbbbt!!], but beyond that, and even with the non-native English, Klopf pretty much nailed everything about Disharmonic in that spontaneous dissection. Expositionsprophylaxe delivers caustic death/grind that’s as raw as the wind in winter, but it also somehow managed to underscore a unique form of ‘hippieness’ that actually wasn’t all that rare in the crust punk scene that grew up around the same time. Whatever sort of tag(s) people wanted to nail to the album’s door, to me it felt as if I’d just discovered a missing piece to the puzzle of my brain circa 1990, which seemed rather substantial. And as luck would have it, approximately six months after the record’s release I was lucky enough to see the band play live, which still feels INSANELY serendipitous, even now, 35 years later. Not sure how or why Disharmonic Orchestra made their way to the US back then, but they landed on the bill of this now famous show, tacked on rather last minute alongside Repulsion and Incantation. Ten fricken bucks, me buckos. Can you imagine what sort of draw this show would catch today?

Disharmonic’s set was as fun and as leveling as expected, and the three players were overly kind as well, spending time talking to fans and hawking a wildly odd shirt that for some reason opted to depict a grimacing old woman who was perhaps forced to listen to Expositionsprophylaxe whilst attempting to tend a kindly garden. In the end, I walked away from the experience an even bigger fan—a fan for life—and to this day I can still tap into that unchecked thrill whenever I reach for my antique CD copy. And hey, not only does the music continue to stand the test of time, it never fails to serve as a reminder of just how formative and extraordinary those early years happened to be. So, yeah, thank you for being such a big part of the foundation, Disharmonic Orchestra. Now, how about a big, fancy deluxe reissue of Expositionsprophylaxe?