We have finally cleared out the backlog of great music and present some new episodes.
Episode 711 features music from The Jesus and Mary Chain, Zola Jesus, Duster, Sangre Nueva, Dialect, The Bug, Cleared, Mount Eerie, Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra, Hayden Pedigo, Bistro Boy, and Ibukun Sunday.
Episode 712 has tunes by Mazza Vision, Waveskania, Black Pus, Sam Gendel, Benny Bock, and Hans Kjorstad, Katharina Grosse, Carina Khorkhordina, Tintin Patrone, Billy Roisz, and Stefan Schneider, His Name Is Alive, artificial memory trace, mclusky, Justin Walter, mastroKristo, Başak Günak, and William Basinski.
Episode 713 brings you sounds from Mouse On Mars, Leavs, Lawrence English, Mo Dotti, Wendy Eisenberg, Envy, Ben Lukas Boysen, Cindytalk, Mercury Rev, White Poppy, Anadol & Marie Klock, and Galaxie 500.
Skolavordustigur Street in Reykjavík photo by Jon (your Podcast DJ).
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Aaron Martin uses a mind-boggling number of instruments and objects both exotic and traditional on his latest album of introspective instrumentals. Because of the vast array of tools at his disposal, no two tracks sound alike. What unites them is the fact that almost every song is made of delicate, airy passages that refuse to be grounded.
While Martin's skills and arrangements are impressive, many of these songs have so many movements within them that their overall intentions can get lost. Rather than evolving with the same instruments they start with, instead new instruments crossfade into the mix to form different sections and take the song somewhere new. Even though these new sections are often equal to or better than the parts they're replacing, this constant shifting of themes and instrumentation never quite allows the listener to gain a comfortable foothold. A good example of this is "Tire Swing," one of my favorites on the album. The first half starts with a piercing pitch and vibrato strings before morphing into an elegant dirge for the second half. The latter part is much more interesting but the parts are divided so equally that it sounds more like two unrelated sections that are fused together rather than a tension-building intro that leads into the main body. Almost every song does something like this at least once if not more, and the result is a somewhat choppy, disconnected listening experience rather than the meditative one it could have been.
Martin is clearly very talented, and the music here is often captivating and gorgeous. Too much reliance on seemingly arbitrary changes keeps River Water just shy of being a transcendent recording.
The Baltimore-based duo of Jane & Josh came together as Abiku like some unstoppable galactic collision. Their brand of short, sharp, raw, and unpolished explosions of punk noisiness, interspersed with a few longer expositions and more experimental drone-style pieces, is in itself a kind of joyful collision: a place where keyboards, guitars, and rhythm machines smash together faster and more powerfully than sub-atomic particles in an accelerator. Their latest series of detonations, the two-part CD set of Right and Left, showered me with all kinds of radiative shrapnel, at times threatening to melt my ears and at other times soothing the heat inflicted by the wounds.
Together this two part set, released as separate CDs which are yet simultaneously inextricably linked just like a set of twins (hence the reason for being reviewed as a single entity), represents something of a beast, providing 42 tracks over a total combined running time of just over two hours or more. Most of the tracks seem reluctant to extend themselves beyond the two minute mark, blasting themselves out in a veritable white-hot frenzy of mashed-up distortion, poppy/dancey sequenced rhythms and synthetic percussion, and topped off with the weirdly tremulous voice of Josh and/or the harpy screaming of Jane. As rough around the edges as the production inevitably is, the songs are nevertheless hopelessly catchy and melodic in some cases, memorably so in actuality, borne out by the undeniable fact that I have found myself humming some of the vocal lines hours after the CD has left the room—whatever else can be said about this Abiku have a habit of writing songs that burrow their way into the memory and then travel all the way down to the foot, causing it to involuntarily tap in sympathy with the beat.
Apart from Josh’s querulous singing style, the other memorable aspect here is the strange mix of styles present—almost as if on any given day Abiku arbitrarily decide to write something in a particular style and hack away at it and see what comes out at the end of it. Thus for instance we get the aforementioned ejaculatory pop-punk-noise explosions which ultimately dominate the digital grooves, but in between them are the occasional hints of a quieter and more reflective aesthetic, such as on the closer to the Right album “Water Trust,” an expansive, cosmic 14 minute Philip Glass-style keyboard drone epic that can either be viewed as a abrupt change of stylistic course or a species of interlude meant as a breather after the manic breathlessness of the preceding twenty-one tracks. Additionally, there are almost dance-music style episodes. Despite the apparent contradiction implied in the juxtapositioning of the various styles it somehow doesn’t carry with it any incongruity at all—in fact I would go so far as to posit that it works in its own strange way. Of the two, Right has something of a rawer, more jagged, and less polished edge to it than Left, the latter veering more towards the electronic, experimental end of the spectrum (and even containing one or two of those abovementioned extremely danceable tunes), although it too has its fair share of noisiness and hair-stripping fieriness.
In that sense it would also be fair to say that by utilising the two styles Abiku manage to avoid any accusation of being restrained by any stylistic and musical straitjackets of their own making, although having mentioned that I can quite easily see that sitting through the two albums in one sitting could turn into something of a marathon session for some. I found it highly entertaining (and initially pleasingly and highly unpredictable) for my part, as I was waiting to hear what would emerge from the speakers, whether it be another blistering less-than-two-minute shouting and screaming match, or a more exploratory electronic keyboard affair—but for me, even that limited form of ‘interaction’, in conjunction with the often infectious exuberance exhibited by the noisier tracks, was enough to convince that these two albums weren’t half bad and they even managed to give me a moment or two of nostalgia as it brought back memories of my punk-infested youth, where often enthusiasm and sheer energy would win out over musicianship—and that is perhaps the biggest thing that I took from this. Now, if only my bones could stand a two hour session of bouncing and pogoing around without any fear of doing myself any long-term damage...
This is only the third album in eleven years from Austin's Experimental Aircraft, after 1999’s self titled debut on Sleepy Bunny (and which was subsequently re-released a year later by Devil in the Woods Records) and Love for the Last Time (Rollerderby) in 2002. Here, once again, the Texas quartet engineer a collection of hazy and melodically high flying, brightly-lit guitar-based indie-rock songs, aided and lifted in the main by Rachel Staggs’ (Eau Claire, Static Silence) warm yet slightly distant voice (but which is yet shot through with a steely strength even so) which floats serenely above a landscape of strong noisy reverb-soaked guitar lines backed by a dependably solid rhythm section.
The principal attribute on show here is—given that each separate element displays a certain simplicity of construction in musical terms, together in the round they combine to create a complex density—a thick patterned sonic carpet full of sculpted depth and shapes. Dark swathes of distorted guitar provide a solid canvas on which sparkling melodies and highlights find themselves picked out, and both the sweetly distracted vocals of Staggs and the more straightforwardly sung delivery of T.J. O’Leary find a springboard from which to launch themselves. More than that though is that that canvas is an expansive one, whose musical and stylistic horizons stretch as far as the eye can see, describing vast limitless soundscapes upon which are drawn the small orbits of the everyday it seems. It’s this aspect of the small painted against the larger backdrop that drives the engine of this album, and for me the brightest sparks come from the friction between the echoey and reverb-sodden guitars, and the borderline ethereality and fragility of Stagg’s vocal lines, which give the impression of a tiny lost point within a much greater space, almost on the verge of being overpowered and being dispersed to the four winds but yet having a hidden steeliness and strength that enables it to both remain whole and be greater than the limits imposed on it.
This is not to say that O’Leary’s voice is lacking in effectiveness, simply that his strengths have a different focus and aims to fill the space it occupies, refusing to let what surrounds it subsume or absorb it in any way. In some ways it’s an act of defiance; in other words, even amongst the vastness, I refuse to be lost and I am a voice that deserves to be heard and listened to. The backing music is equally adept and flexible at creating a supporting framework upon which to hang the two vocal styles, and very often the music is designed to complement whoever’s singing and does so excellently. It is clear, then, that all of the musicians work as a successfully harmonious unit, able to draw out the relative strengths of each, polishing and illuminating them; moreover this particular facet positively shines through, blindingly so I would say.
As a collection of songs melody- and beat-driven songs this has few, if any, faults—however I do have one issue with this CD, and that’s the cover that graces it. Quite simply put it looks like it’s the result of no more than ten minutes work when they discovered that in the euphoria of putting this together they’d actually forgotten to commission an artist to create one. It’s nothing more than a quickly cobbled together Photoshop exercise—in fact I recognised some of the effects used from my time as a designer getting to grips with the new graphics technology in the early '90s, and in these days of sophistication and polish there is absolutely no excuse for producing such a shoddily packaged product.
Just look past that, though, and there is a wealth of texture, emotional range, and musical prowess to please, and certainly from my point of view, it ticks all the boxes: it is melodically sophisticated and mature, with a group of excellent musicians who play to each other’s strengths and abilities, resulting in a coherent package that is confidently delivered and played. That, to all intents and purposes, is what does it for me on this one.
Another month and yet another release from Anthony Mangicapra, this time a perfect little EP of unsettling ambiences. Together, the three sinister sounding pieces on this release are a slight change of course for his Hoor-Paar-Kraat endeavour. There is less emphasis on collage work and more on developing potent drones and this approach has seriously paid off.
The sounds on the main piece, “Secrets from a Silk Purse,” come from a recording made by Mangicapra at a gallery where (with the artist’s permission) he bowed a sculpture and later processed the metallic drones into their present form (although there seems to be minimal post-production work here). He uses a far more limited palette of sounds on this compared to his other releases, the drones only accompanied by the occasional cough or sound of a door closing (presumably in the gallery itself). The result is a powerful and singular approach to sound, even if it is not a million miles away from Nurse With Wound or Organum territory.
This EP sounds fantastic and the 3” CD format suits the trio of pieces, allowing them enough time to unfold and remain thematically coherent but not allowing any room for filler. Plus considering this is a larger pressing than most Hoor-Paar-Kraat releases, hopefully more people will catch on to this consistently remarkable project.
21 year old Olafur Arnalds wrote some of this debut when he was 15. His controlled pieces for piano, strings, and occasional electronics will have fans of Max Richter and Johann Johannsson as happy as dreaming dogs having their bellies tickled.
Arnalds is from Iceland and the stereotypical reaction might be to suggest his work is clean, cool and somehow emotionally detached. In interviews about his creativity, though, he has largely played down the influence of native landscape, preferring instead to speak of the effects of interactions with real people and of life in his hometown. Certainly Eulogy for Evolution seems a structured reflection of a passage of time such as that of a human lifespan and Arnalds’ music engages emotions immediately and does not let them go. He achieves this by sound alone as the titles of tracks are depicted by numbers rather than through the use of phrases or names. These numbers apparently allude to the timing of imaginary snapshots throughout the album. Hence “3326” refers to a possible picture of the scene at 33 minutes 26 seconds. Opener “0040” features crystal piano notes framed and seemingly held in the air by the plainest of string arrangements. “0048/0729” is an exercise in delay and restraint with added atmospherics and (perhaps) accordion, with quite epic results.
Parts of “1440” are almost too lush for my tastes but stop just about shy of full-on sentimentality. I also like the fake ending on this piece and the ending which is a repetition of just a few notes. The important thing is: they are the right notes. Calling your record Eulogy for Evolution shows a certain confidence but Arnalds has the talent to match and critics have murmured like contented lambs suckling on their mother’s milk. While the rules of composition were ripped up decades ago it’s a trifle hard not to feel something approaching negativity when someone so young combines melancholy and optimism with so little fuss: almost as if he should have to do a longer apprenticeship if only to acknowledge that evolution takes time. No matter, Arnalds has studied Arvo Part and has been chosen to tour with Sigur Ros later this summer so his gravitation toward sparse impressionism is probably a natural path.
In any event his debut sounds full of the reverence and awe normally reserved for God, or at least George Best or Sir Vivian Richards at the absolute peak of their powers. As exquisite as the first few tracks are, by “1953” I was thinking that evolution (in alphabetical terms) would only be progressing from about A to H. However, on the gorgeous but more dramatic and nuanced “3055” a dynamic of change is writ in fuzzed electronics, speedy piano and booming percussion. “3326,” the shortest piece on the album, adds to the variety with a quasi-violent rubbing of strings evoking the brief passion of Jacqueline du Pre: chopped down before she was barely a woman.
I once upset the host of a party by changing the music after what was starting to seem like 48 hours of lute music. Unbeknownst to me, she had set up a series of tapes to gradually delight the ears of her guests with a timeline of sound encompassing early music right through to (what was then the happening sound of) Eno and Byrne! Let me offer belated apologies to the host, Melanie. In my defense, party goers were impatient and, as with evolution itself, unable to predict when, or if, swift and radical changes would ever occur. Olafur Arnalds has not released an album encompassing the entire history of Western music, but Eulogy for Evolution will reward the patient listener.
Released in both CD and 12” vinyl formats, with five bonus cuts on the CD, Dream Island Laughing Language has a happy homemade intensity blending sounds gleaned from natural instruments such as bells, bowls, flutes, mini- dulcimer, mbira, hands, rubber bands and...rocks, as well as those derived from cassettes and computers.
Lucky Dragons' symbolic band name (named after a Japanese fishing boat that became a symbol of anti-nuclear feeling after it was snagged in the fallout of a US hydrogen bomb test), their pseudo digital ragas and electro-acoustic mandalas, their slacker looks and preposterous promo blurb lead me to the inescapable conclusion that... here's a band to get behind. This is their eighteenth release since the spring of 2000. The “dream island” part of the album title refers to the landfill in Tokyo harbor where the boat now resides and the “laughing language” bit harks toward the idea that some things cannot be expressed in our own languages.
Starting with the self-explanatory “Clipped Gongs” Dream Island has enough contrast in pacing and texture to hold the shortest of attention spans. Luke Fischbeck is the hinge on which the whole Lucky Dragons project swings. He also sings a little in nicely resonant tones. Indeed, on “Drinking Dirty Water” his singing has the calm appeal of Brian Eno’s pastoral pastel period. “Desert Rose” is an addictive piece of frenetic yet spacious percussion. “Starter Culture” sounds stretched and ethereal and rather like how I imagine weasels with rain sticks might interpret Animal Collective. A live performance by Lucky Dragons might be something to see (and maybe participate in). Things continue in this flashy vein until the opening section of final track “Very 2,” which shows how the group can use a more full sound as a means to progress.
Dream Island Laughing Language is a pretty convincing record, albeit one that with a fairly narrow appeal. There remains the nagging doubt about Fischbeck and Sarah Rara's claim that they play “poppies” although that may be another reason to support them.
With a track record collaborating with the likes of Sunn O))), Thorr’s Hammer, and other dark luminaries, the sound of this disc is not at all unexpected. However, while her collaborations strayed more towards the metal end of things, this first (and entirely solo) disc is decidedly more eclectic, and for that reason perhaps more frightening than any of her other appearances.
The disc is front loaded with the more jarring and frightening moments. It opens extremely frightening and, while not letting up, begins to lessen the demonic grab by the end of the disc. Opening track “Collapse-Lifting of the Veil” sounds like a demonic possession must feel. The piece is a constant battle between fragmented stabbing noisy guitar drone and gentle, acoustic strumming, just as the vocals alternate between soft folk singing and deranged, Linda Blair growls and shrieks. The follower, “Expanding Universe,” has a similar template, but of a more electronic flavor with synthetic noises and a split between ambient passages and harsh electronic noise outbursts.
Other tracks during the first half follow this disorienting mix of the beautiful and the beastly. Guitar noise, indecipherable noises, gentle vocals and spoken word elements balanced with growled, inhuman vocals, sometimes pure, other times electronically treated to be even less human.
“Incubation” and “Birth” both mark a slightly less terrifying turn of events…a deep heartbeat like pulse and calmer more restrained vocals, often pitch shifted to various levels make for a slightly lighter shade of black. I say this because the tracks still have a power electronics style synth drone, and “Love” is based over an awkward nauseating rhythm, and the acoustic guitar elements are occasionally interrupted by jarring blasts of distorted noise.
The unexpected blasts come in the form of violent, tortured screams on “Dying”, appropriately enough, which even upstage the noise blasts that punctuate the guitar drone. The final piece, “Void: Empty Spaces Between Filaments” ends in a restrained, but sinister way: layered vocals that are evil sounding and also relatively restrained, at some points the spoken word parts are even, thrillingly enough, reading physics equations.
As a whole, Amplicon is one of the most schizophrenic releases I’ve heard this year. There are elements of folk, black metal, and pure noise in here, and with its overall cut-and-paste structure, one element is just as likely to pop out as the next. It’s jarring, frightening, and tenser than any horror film I’ve seen in the past few years.
Never a band to stagnate, Wire have consistently reinvented themselves with each and every release in their long career. This new disc puts them in an interesting situation, given that they have been reduced to a trio with the departure of guitarist Bruce Gilbert. This is a similar situation to the post-Manscape era, when Robert Grey (then Gotobed) left the band. That time, however, they became Wir and released material that, while sharing parallels to Wire, had a different feel entirely. In some ways, perhaps they should have done something similar with this album because, though it is a wonderful work with few shortcomings, it doesn't FEEL quite like Wire.
Back when they were Wir for The First Letter and Vien, it felt like a different beast entirely. Although they had been increasingly flirting with electronic instrumentation and programming, these two works were built most heavily on that. Both of them also took a couple listens to grow on me, while most of the quartet form of Wire’s work was instantly loved. Object 47 has been the same for me, as when I first heard it I definitely had mixed feelings. While a couple tracks stood out immediately as brilliant, others felt a bit out of character for the band. As a whole, it felt just a bit too “pop.” Not that Wire would ever shy away from making pop music—one only has to hear “Map Ref 41°N 93°W” or “Eardrum Buzz” to know that’s not the case—but material like that usually had a more difficult, edgy counterpoint to balance. For an album with “Mr. Marx’s Table” there was a “99.9” to just keep things a bit out of the norm. That is not the case here.
It continues the sonic trend that Read and Burn 03 started late last year, sort of the modernized A Bell Is A Cup to compliment Send’s updated Pink Flag digital thrash. There is a floaty, ethereal feel to a lot of these tracks that characterized much of their 1980s output. But, even on the EP, which was also sans Gilbert, there was the near-10 minute “23 Years Too Late” that kept things a bit enjoyably obtuse. Object 47 consists of nine tracks that all clock in at an average of four minutes. Not really overly oblique or difficult at all.
I do not want to come across as sounding overly critical though, because the album as a whole is most definitely brilliant and worthy of multiple listens, it’s just “different.” The opener “One Of Us,” which was released earlier this year as a free MP3 download, is an earworm slab of pop genius. Bolstered by a rhythm section that was most likely inspired by the DFA folks, it chugs along on a sharp neo-disco beat and a distorted bass line, with a chorus that is as catchy and memorable as any the band has produced in their 31 year career.
Graham Lewis’ increased vocal presence compared to Send is also greatly appreciated, and does give the disc a more Wire feel than it probably would without him. His swarthy delivery of the questions that make up the lyrics of “Are You Ready?” definitely recall the classic “Ambitious” from many albums ago. “Four Long Years” even gives a subtle nod to the Wir era, a mid-paced electronic based piece that feels more than a bit danceable. The album closer “All Fours” is the closest concession to difficult that the disc makes, its darker tone and angry Colin Newman vocals put it a bit more towards the Send side of the spectrum, a bit more raw than the preceding lighter material, but it’s no “Crazy About Love.”
Object 47 is a great pop album. It makes no concessions to the mainstream and is quite obviously the product of Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, and Robert Grey. However, it is pretty clear that the guy who was keen to throw the monkey wrench in a few tracks and increase the esotericness that was always enjoyable was Bruce Gilbert, who is no longer here (in the band, at least). It is an enjoyable disc that I have appreciated more and more with each listen, but the “feel” is just so different than most of the Wire discography. Perhaps it should have been released as Wie or Wre or Ire, but obviously none of those monikers make sense or look good on paper. With any other band I’d probably consider this one of the “Album of the Year” contenders, but given its context, I can’t make that statement, yet at least.
TINTA INVISIBLE new sound-fiction by Nad Spiro GEOMETRIK RECORDS - GR DIGI-03
Nad Spiro (Rosa Arruti), fetish artist on the Spanish experimental music scene, is back with her third solo offering. In Tinta Invisible she goes one step further stretching the sonic reach of her guitar and exploring unfrequented audioZones, using what she calls 'sound camouflage', not shy of employing her voice either. With her we discover new magnetizing horizons in the outer peripheries of electronica pulsing with deeply narcotic cadences.
Possibly the least obscure of her three outings to date, in it Spiro plays further with evocations and shadows to create her 'Sound-Fictions': her musical riddles lean more toward movies by David Lynch or stories by Philip K. Dick. Perhaps what these seductive, indecipherable messages we hear really are is internal communications.
As we have come to expect from Nad Spiro, Tinta Invisible beggars label or description. It was co-produced by Victor Sol, and includes a special collaboration from Kim Cascone.
Tracklisting: Ex Limbo Stars Interruptus Meremont Hotel Helix Tinta invisible Time track Soundhouse Obauba Miss Rotula Eye TV
Nad Spiro will be performing at the AVANTGARDE FESTIVAL Schiphorst (Germany) july 4-6th together with Faust, Nurse With Wound, DACH, Manami N, Incite... www.avantgardefestival.de
Car Alarm, The Sea and Cake’s seventh full-length record, is bracing, like the surge of wasabi on sweet sushi, like the slap of cool water on a diving body, like the head-rush of a rollercoaster just leaving summit.
Historically, The Sea and Cake have stayed the course since forming in Chicago in 1993, but over the last couple of years they have pulled in even tighter, recording hot and fast on the heels of a busy performance schedule without breaking for other projects. The sense of trust and communication that is key to a working band is cultivated over the long haul. Stop working together, and those connections go dormant, hibernate; keep on trucking, and they deepen and get sharper, allowing the band to reach for new things, experiment freely, evolve and develop and grow.
The Sea and Cake's aim in creating Car Alarm was to follow up quickly on its precursor, the stripped down Everybody. Sam Prekop says the band wanted to make a record that felt like they had never stopped playing, a continuously limbered up ensemble that parlayed its last tour into new material. They started working on it right after an Australian tour in March, and finished it after a miraculous three-month gestation. If the usual process in pop music is to make a record and then breathe life into it on the road, this flips that presumption on its head, starting with a vital, pulsing set-list on disc; what heights they’ll take the new songs to in concert only remains to be seen.
Where in the past, The Sea and Cake has disbursed between records to allow each member their individual pursuits – Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt’s artwork and solo projects, John McEntire’s production at his SOMA Studio and work with Tortoise, Eric Claridge’s alternate identity as a painter – in this case they didn’t disband, but dove straight into Car Alarm. The quickness reflects a personal urgency, too, given the imminent delivery of Prekop’s firstborn. Thoughts of fatherhood may lend a kind of optimistic air to the record. It has the open, crisp sound that The Sea and Cake have spent 15 years crafting, but Car Alarm also has a palpable edge. That’s the edge of people who know each other well enough to push a bit harder, who aren’t worried about ruffling each other’s feathers or trying something different, difficult, intuitive, trusting. Something bracing.
-- John Corbett
Car Alarm will be released October 21st on Thrill Jockey.
Tracklisting: 01. Aerial 02. a Fuller Moon 03. on a Letter 04. CMS Sequence 05. Car Alarm 06. Weekend 07. New Schools 08. Window Sills 09. Down in the City 10. Pages 11. the Staircase 12. Mirrors Read More
There has always been a somewhat contentious, but notable relationship between conventional “pop” music and the more abrasive spectrum of the harsh and electronic. Throbbing Gristle were never hesitant to put a soft gem out like “United” or “Distant Dreams” alongside dissonance like “Subhuman.” More obscure, but more jarring to yours truly was hearing Japanese noise gods Hijokaidan sneaking a faithful cover of Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine” on their Tapes album. Recently there’s folks like Fuck Buttons and Wolf Eyes who are more than happy to mix it with dance and punk, respectively. Dino Felipe (Fukktron, Old Bombs), on the other hand, takes a more literal approach and instead creates a purely pop album with a decidedly noise aesthetic.
Felipe covers a wide variety of what all meets the rather broad requirements for pop music across these 14 tracks. Regardless of the intention, all of the songs come across as covered in some thick grimy coating that can only come from equipment used to make the ugliest sounds for too many years. Not exactly harsh or noise based, but the intentionally murky production is there. A lot of this comes out on top of the vocals, but even the obtuse filtering and layering cannot hide the 60s girl group influenced falsetto vocals on “Stuck on You” and “Willow Waly.”
1980s pop gets a nod too, both on the cover of Haunted House’s “Chandeliers” and “What’s Wrong With Me?” The former’s early synth and electronic piano led melodies provide an odd counterpoint for the harsher vocals, but somehow the two work. The latter is purely a product of that era’s technology and sensibility: a cheap Casio beatbox, noise guitar, and a synth line right out of a Rick James album. Even the 1950s is represented in “Been Waiting” though it feels less Buddy Holly and more Alan Vega/Martin Rev with its abrasive elements.
The other tracks, while they may lack as specific of a temporal reference point are no less enjoyable or catchy. Tracks like “6 Feet Under” have that naïve, bedroom rock charm that early Ween albums exuded before they decided to take themselves more seriously. “Just Call Me” and “I Don’t Want To” throw a bit of punk into the equation, but more in a faster beat and slightly more aggressive approach to both the guitar and the vocals, but never straying from the simple and catchy nature of the tracks.
The No Fun Productions label seems like an odd place for this strange little disc to rear its head, considering it is a label much more known for promoting the harsher and more violent ends of the spectrum. Given the leaning towards pop filtered through a noise lens, it’s not entirely bizarre, but it admittedly is much more conventional than I would have expected, even for all its idiosyncrasies.