jesus and doc brown as haphazard hairy shaman, leads us not into temptation, but delivers us from evil. in a giant man-sized hamster ball.
somewhere between religion and science, as much studio as instrument, as much sky as earth.
embryonic is another musical paradigm shift from the lips, a steady transmogrification; referencing everything from miles davis’ bitches brew to can, skip spence, acid mothers temple, elo…
the lyrics are darker – part existential crisis, part bleak new age-ery, part satanism. the album’s all about the nature, understanding and transgression of evil, about losing control, destroying the ego, about giving in to freedom and all that entails. people are evil, it’s true but on the outside they can be gentle too, if they decide. to quote if.
as coyne himself said: making this record, we did, on all levels, completely lose our way… and that we surrendered to every impulsive whim… and that almost every song we intended to do, initially, failed. and now we stand before you not knowing what we have done.
well i’ll tell you wayne shall i? you’ve made a sprawling mess of a double album, in the best possible lipsian way of course. on hearing the mental joe meeks meets david lynch soundtrack for christmas on mars i asked what effect, if any, this mad little foetus of record would have on their next album proper. got my bloody answer didn’t i.
another mad little foetus, and given the title, there is a sketchy, half-formed quality to the record. the usual themes and imagery’s here – the magic, the tragic, grim realism, childlike wonder, birth, enlightenment, mortality, religion, science, psychedelia, psychiatry, dementia…
occasionally wonky and shambolic and weirder than recent output, as evidenced by liliana cavini’s night porter providing inspiration for the first track, convinced of the hex. this sets out their stall. a krautrock marching band beat and woozy squelches, funked up whoops and hollers, that bass (it’s such a four string led record) and most bizarrely of all coyne’s monochrome damo suzuki vocals.
from there we lurch through a seventy minute kaleidoscope of evil’s else-world balladry, the free jazz skronk of aquarius sabotage, the mechanistic post-punk glam groove of see the leaves, psyched out narcotic jazz on powerless, stereolab on steroids of the ego’s last stand with the bleak blank line – man holds a gun / there’s no explanation / he shoots at the sun.
stand out track is worm mountain, a collaboration with mgmt. which reminds me of lightning bolt’s impulsiveness and sounds like led zeppelin gone wrong in the head. it’s a rumbling beast of charged psych rock.
in amongst this are readings from mathematician thorsten wörmann and yeah yeah yeahs karen o impersonating gilla monsters (but fucking up a helicopter…).
mining madness. melting music. god bless you alchemists.
