The story of an outlaw on the run from the police, from himself, and from existential typecasting

>GREATER THAN presents
THE RECIDIVIST
Produced composed & performed by Krich & Trippo
Improvisations recorded June-July 2005, mixed, edited & overdubbed 2005-2020
Released November 2nd 2020
©2020 Screwy Bastards Records SB4

KRICH guitars vocals synth glockenspiel percussion mbira
TRIPPO guitars vocals synth drum machine glockenspiel percussion mbira tape recorder

This album was built from part of our 2005 improv cycle (similarly to THINGS ARE REALLY GOOD AS THEY REALLY SHOULD BE), and features our mini rock opera The Recidivist, about a desperate man on the run from the police, himself, and film typecasting. Includes four bonus tracks.

The Recidivist
He is driving and he doesn’t know quite where to. He pulls his stolen sedan into a gas station, turns off the motor, sits. He is wearing a black leather jacket, a white t-shirt, blue jeans, dark eyeshades, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip. He sits at the wheel for a short moment, then leans over, opens the glove compartment, rummages around, looking for something, not finding it. He sits back, sighs, defeated, staring blankly through the windshield. He has no lighter. He has no matches. He reaches behind his back and pulls a large caliber handgun from his belt. He checks the clip, loads the chamber, gets out of the car, walks towards the station, opens the glass door, and points the gun at the cashier. He is yelling orders, to the customers, to the cashier, just give me the money, just give it to me. Gunshots ring out. He runs back out to the sedan with his less than ideal haul, gets in, starts it, floors it. He is alone on the road, running away. He had stolen the car and left the state to see his woman, violating his parole. It was no good, they were there waiting for him to show up. He shot his way out, popped some bennies and hit the road, pushing the car and himself beyond limit. The road is a feverish grinding haze of bad memories and broken dreams, the voices of his tormenters raging in his head, while he countered with a few paltry strands of memory where he felt he had achieved some victory. It was no use, the tormentors kept drowning him out, stalking him, moving in for the kill, got to keep awake, got to keep pushing, got to stay one step ahead. The police are closing in behind him. Sirens in the distance, flashing lights in the rearview. He downs a handful of pills and keeps driving, laughing hysterically, maniacally, to himself. The end is near. It feels pretty fucking good. He screams: “I’m not going back to the big house! I’ll kill every single fucking one of you!” He briefly eludes his pursuers by taking a series of back roads to an abandoned warehouse, parks, gets out, opens the trunk, checks his ordinance. They are almost here now. He hears helicopters along with the rising sirens as he downs the last of his pills and prepares for his fate. When the police arrive and surround the warehouse, he strides out with weapons drawn and demonstrates to them what his mama didn’t shit out: NO FUCKIN’ PUSSIES! He sprays his final fury at his would-be masters, making the tiny policemen bullet-dance, each of their spasmodic bodies becoming a bright crimson fountain…frying them with the fiery blast of an explosion from well placed shots at a nearby propane tank...eviscerating their oh-so-pure blue-clad bodies with grenades launched dead center, torsos hollowed, arms and legs shorn away, flying through the air. Screaming laughter spews from his blood spattered face as he fires non-stop, giving them everything he has to give. When his weapons finally run dry, he just stands there howling, crazed, berzerk, waiting for them to close in and finish him off, wishing they would get close enough for him to crush their skulls, gouge their eyes out, knock their teeth in, anything he could do, anything. They take aim and fire. He is dying, riddled with bullet holes. As he loses consciousness, the chatter of police radios mutates into a disjointed and surreal dying hallucination where he questions the genre of his life path and wonders if he might have been able to translate the movie of his life into a different genre.