Hi, I'm back. Elvis says "hi!"
There is stuff that needs addressing...
First off, Figment Bee . It is the bandonym handle for Tim Butler, formerly of Green Ants Dream, The Garble Rays and Tim McCarroll-Butler.
It's not the Psychedelic Furs guy, ergo the use of the bandonym. Kind of like why I'm Mole/Spin Turlock instead of Bruce Mowat.
Cicadas, the title of Mr Butler's first release in 15 + years, hints at an approaching apocalypse without hysterics (Luxury), offers domestic bliss without being cloying (Alyha), has a song about a park in my old Hamilton hood, (Beulah Park) and all the metaphysical musings you can eat (just about every other track), and set to some winsome tunes. The guy's still got it: the chord changes that sneak up on you, the essentialist forward movement (don't say minimal) of the drums n bass parts that recall Moe Tucker/Modern Lovers, and the genre smash n'mash approach that makes him equally not at home at folk AND rock festivals.
What's different this time around is a) this stuff is now available worldwide through the miracle of the Internet. and b) the jay-uzz touches, which come courtesy of his daughter, Naomi McCarroll-Butler, a serious player in her own right.
Some of you have been poking around the Back Spins. Good, because I've written about Iconoclast before.So click on this and catch up...
...got that?
So there's been a few Iconoclast releases since I last posted. The most recent one is Demolition Of Wisdom.
The salient point here is "chocolate ice cream tends to taste like chocolate ice cream the first - and the last time - you taste it" Iconoclast is consistency itself and this recording is just as great as the previous one, except for the first.
Everything I said about the duo in the past still applies..you have thrashing, shrieking, percussion mayhem galore, screamalongs, and faux drunken sentimental drinking songs. I can't play these recordings at home without using headphones because they drive Shirl crazy, but I enjoy the texture and consistency of each and everyone. Even more consistent than Bo Diddley (and the duo has been a going concern for 32+ years). Someone pointed out that this album has a blues feel. I would say in response that it's extra-terrestial blues influenced.
Given all of that, the song titles should be able to fill you in the rest of the context: Tour of the Wild Moons, Indulgence No. 505, When I Was Naughty,(and it's follow-up, When I Was Nice), and who could forget The Lurking Tumbleweed.
Like Ice Cream, baby. Chocolate ice cream. Go here
Other stuff I've listened to: Mdou Moctar, Khun Narin, Moonlight Benjamin, and The Shangs
I work for the latter group, true, but I still listen to their latest, Sonny Bono, Tear Down This Wall Of Sound
A lot of this recording germinated in the Saucer73 reunion recordings , which featured four out of the six members of the 1973, pre Cyborgs edition of Simply Saucer. That outfit was more into improvs-cum jams, and was collectively responsible for auto-generating the loudest sound heard in Hamilton since World War II.
So a lot of this will sound jarring to young ears. Especially the one-two punch of Betrayal and In the Shadow Of The Stars (part Two). Personally, these are my favourite bits...but only on the phones!
The more conventional song pieces are unconventional in their own right: you have tribal hippie anthems inspired by the Manson Family ("Eleven"), neo-bossa nova pieces caught in a head-on collision with Marty Rev ("Love Charade") and skewed b-movie soundtracks (The Secret of the Purple Reef)
I haven't been reading much about this on the web, except for this bit. I imagine people saying "too..": too noisy, too soft, too this, too that, the singer's voice is off. "
Too bad. Your loss
