Detroit’s Sonic Smut

The Detroit Rabbit Hole

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, start reading about the history of Detroit’s music scene. Motown rightfully steals much of the spotlight when speaking of Detroit music, but the legacy of Motor City in music history goes well beyond the untold amount of hits produced by Berry Gordy Jr’s famous label.

Do you want to hear about top jazz musicians? Then, learn about Detroit natives like Alice Coltrane, Donald Byrd, and Kenny Burrell. How about the blues? Legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker moved to Detroit as a teenager and hung with other bluesmen on Hastings Street, like T-Bone Walker.

Let’s not forget that the city earned the nickname “Detroit Rock City” for a reason. In the Seventies, Detroit was a hub for rock ‘n roll thanks to Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop and his Stooges, Ted Nugent, and many others. Later, The White Stripes emerged from Detroit, and the city also became a breeding ground for gritty new hip-hop musicians like Eminem. Whatever your musical taste, it’s guaranteed that Detroit can supply what you’re looking for.

For this review, the Detroit musician who serves as the key point of reference is the great George Clinton. Clinton emerged as a Motown songwriter initially, but he eventually revolutionized R&B with a blend of funk, soul, rock, and plain-old weirdness with his groups Funkadelic and Parliament. Clinton’s Afrofuturism, outlandish fashion, surreal humor, and blending of soul with psychedelia are legendary.

Detroit’s Sonic Smut

This brings us to present-day Detroit, where a trio of Motor City musicians known as Sonic Smut have delivered a fascinating six-track debut self-titled LP that is yet another entry in the D-Town musical zeitgeist. The six songs on Sonic Smut take us on a technicolor sleazeball journey with a blend of punk, funk, garage rock, psychedelia, experimental, stoner rock, and more. It’s an eclectic album that feels like the group mashed every influence and ran it through a blender. The influence of George Clinton can be found on a few songs, too.

In case you’re wondering, yes, the album is heavy. We wouldn’t be writing about it for Clean And Sober Stoner if it wasn’t, right? ‘Ssippi Sludge hits us right in the face as the opening track, a sprinting hard-rock jam that lasts less than three minutes but leaves an indent on your skull. Smutpomtu barrels in guns blazing like White Zombie, notable for its space-out sound effects and Alice Sun and Michael Latcha’s frantic screaming vocals. Is this space rock? Is this stoner rock? I can’t even tell, and nor does it really matter. All the song does is rock and scramble your brains like those “This Is Your Brain On Drugs” PSAs.

The Mids & The Kids R Outta Control is another banger. What stood out to me most on this track was David Cwik’s furious drumming. Sonic Smut seems to care less about song structure, genre, or any semblance of order. They simply want to beat us with a sonic assault that makes our eardrums bleed, creating a wild swirl of noise that runs so hot it’s about to explode.

Smutti Boi may be the most interesting track for several reasons. For one, it feels more composed than the others. Secondly, it gave me flashbacks of early Red Hot Chilli Peppers, particularly their obsecenly rauncy track Sir Psycho Sexy off Blood Sugar Sex Magic. On an album dripping with sluttiness, Smutti Boi is like the thesis statement. 

Latcha whispers the lyrics like Kiedis in those early RHCP songs, and Alice Sun joins in the chorus by telling him what a lewd boy he is. It helps that musically, the song also kicks ass, with a killer guitar solo near the end. (By the way, have you noticed that it’s no longer cool to like RHCP? I think the main reason is that Kiedis has been far too smutty for his own good over the years).

Cosmic Kiss closes the album with something totally different. The tempo is slowed, and the guitar playing enters bluesy territory. It’s easily the most psychedelic song on the record. It’s not really lurching into ‘heavy psych’ territory, but it feels more like drifting through the cosmos. It’s a great song.

The last song I want to talk about is the album’s centerpiece, in my humble opinion: Vanilla Maggot Brain Fudge. This is where the Detroit influence is tied together in one epic, eleven-minute-plus tune. The jam combines two legendary songs – You Keep Me Hangin’ On by Vanilla Fudge and Maggot Brain by Funkadelic. It’s a beautiful rendition of both tracks, with the long-ass guitar pyrotechnics imitating Funkadelic’s Eddie Hazel.

Song of the year contender? We say “yes!”

With a name like Sonic Smut, this band doesn’t pull any punches. It seemed obvious to me they all probably love Parliament-Funkadelic, but the influences go way beyond that. Sonic Smut has a little funk, but there’s also a crushing heaviness on many songs that borders more into stoner rock territory. Where the hell did this band come from? Well, they came from Detroit, a city with a legendary music scene. Maybe music like this is just in their DNA.

Nick Pipitone is a writer living in Tennessee and the editor of The Third Eye blog, which covers the best of psychedelic music. You can probably find him with his nose in a book when he’s not obsessively writing about music.