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The Lexie Mountain Boys, "Sacred Vacation"
Body and voice, the two oldest iinstruments known to humankind, are the only ones featured on this album. The group, which is all female by the way, uses rhythmic call and response chants to give archaic stylings to contemporary performance art. The concept in of itself is great, but the Boys' rejection of songwriting makes for a repetitious listening.
Having never been to any of their "legendary" live shows, I decided to look up photos and video to give me an idea of what the group was all about. From what's available on the internet, it seems like watching them in person would be a ball. Their act incorporates dance, costumes, set design, and audience interaction. Far more interesting than watching some dude peer into his laptop for a half hour, I'm sure. Unfortunately, none of this excitement transfers over to Sacred Vacation.
For an a capella album, this one has little in the way of actual words to wrap your head around. Each song is constructed around a repeated chant, which is often just moaning, grunting or cooing. Clapping and stomping sits in for percussion. Occasionally, the women will harmonize or shout out lines like "You are my sweet potato!" or "You gotta boyfriend, you gotta husband!", but even those pieces seem thinly arranged. The group claims everything from diva-dom to Baltimore doo-wop as inspiration, but they ignore the strong lyrical tradition in those genres. Far from limiting the group, I think focusing on songwriting and oratory would open them up to new themes and influences. Only so much can be expressed by babbling.
I don't want come down too hard on the Lexie Mountain Boys. Their theatre and vocals approach to music-making could offer a good antidote to the dude-centric, technology obsessed status quo in experimental music, at least in principle. But to live up their promise, they'll have to release a CD that can stand by itself outside of a live context. They easiest way I can think of is for them to actually sing about something. As beautiful as the unadorned human voice is, the appeal is lost if it says nothing.
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