There's an odd theory of political science that says one of the reasons equatorial countries and some other very hot places never became global economic forces is because of the oppressive weather. It's just too damn stifling, the premise goes, for citizens to be productive. But imagine what the people of Gabon, Maldives and Kiribati could accomplish if given whatever drugs are powering the sweaty but prolific Josh Homme, who runs his empire of rock from the sun-scorched sands of Palm Desert, California.
Homme has barely taken a breath since he left the corpse of the mighty, lumbering Kyuss rotting in the desert in 1997, casting a shadow over the entire, stupidly named riff-heavy sub-genre, stoner rock. Since then, in only three albums' time, he's taken Queens of the Stone Age from dive club misfits in thrift store threads to internationally acclaimed rock stars who wear shiny shirts and win Q magazine readers' polls. Homme has lent his vocal, guitar, percussion and production talents to acts as varied as the shamefully underrated melodic blues-rockers Masters of Reality, and ambient electro-Brits UNKLE. In 2002, he contributed music to Jodie Foster's coming-of-age, death-by-cougar film Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. Last year, he became a full-on impresario, inevitably founding his own label, RekordsRekords. And most recently, Homme has performed a reverse Grohl, jumping from frontman to drummer with his new band Eagles of Death Metal.
Of course, in his rare downtime, Homme invites friends over for slumber parties, packs the bong, and rolls the tape. The result is the charmingly loose Desert Sessions series, now up to volumes 9 and 10. This latest installment was recorded out in Joshua Tree over eight days, and features, among others, PJ Harvey, Dean Ween, Twiggy Ramirez, Mark Lanegan, and Alain Johannes. The 14 songs sound as all over the map as you might expect with a group so diverse, and that's exactly the point. Sure, it's self-indulgent and ill-advised at times, but that's what the spirit of pure experimentation will get you. For example, the throwaway "Sheperds Pie" is a loony-- and irritating-- a cappella hoedown, an ode to the British delicacy that sounds like it was recorded in the throes of cabin fever. Mostly, though, the project hits all the right notes; you can tell it was a hell of a lot of fun to record, which helps you to forgive the rough patches and go along for the ride.
Homme puts his resin-stained fingerprint on the proceedings from the get-go, playing and/or singing on almost every track. The first one, "Dead in Love", kicks off with a riff shamelessly stolen from Alice Cooper's "School's Out", but, with its eventual wash of dreamy, layered vocals, the song would sound at home on any Queens record. The same could be said for a couple other numbers, particularly "Holey Dime" and "In My Head. Or Something", two examples of the kind of tight, dramatic guitar rock the Queens have always had a knack for.
But it's PJ Harvey, not surprisingly, who dominates here, adding an air of mystery and danger. Her haunting vocal couples perfectly with Homme's theatrical falsetto, and on "Crawl Home", the pair duet over an impossibly low guitar rumble. A solo PJ track, "There Will Never Be a Better Time", was only "performed once", if you believe the liner notes, and it's a powerful snapshot of the immediacy of some of the sessions. Polly's at a peak here, crooning mournfully through a haze of reverb over a spare guitar line.
But while these PJ-fronted songs are clear standouts, the disc hits an apex with the soulfully horny Mark Lanegan number, "I Wanna Make It Wit Chu". With rolling piano and some tasteful guitar licks courtesy of the great Dean Ween, the former Screaming Tree works his whiskey-seeped croak to the hilt. Lanegan spits lines like: "These mysteries of life just ain't my thing/ If I told you I knew about the sun and the moon, I'd be untrue/ The only thing I know for sure is what I wanna do/ I wanna make it wit chu." Like Ween, the two are tweaking a genre (bedroom soul), while also paying it homage.
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