The Pussywarmers and REKA - I Saw Them Leaving

The Pussywarmers and REKA:
I Saw Them Leaving:
Wild Honey Records:
March 3rd 2014:

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

I dunno - you wait ages for two distantly-related European countries to release a surreal psychedelic pomp and pop album then Switzerland and Hungary hook up to create this.

The Swiss offer us the subtle moniker of The Pussywarmers whilst the Hungarians are represented by performer Reka and both combine to serve up a short album that border-hops around Europe. There's a bit of an Eastern European gypsy-cum-Klezmer hybrid, mixed with theatrical influences, U.S. alt-rock and a wee bit of '60s Beat-pop (as heard on the woozy highlight Fading Out).

By using all of their experiences, the collaboration manages to sound confused on occasions but, as with the surfer-style Young Men Living, frequently engaging with lots of feedback, spiky riffs and the sort of hollering and shouting associated with lairy hooligans. And then they can calm down with the gentle last-track I Saw Them Leaving.

It's hard to pigeonhole The Pussywarmers and Reka - steam-pop? gypsydelia? what exactly makes them tick? A love of road-movies, burlesque clubs, David Lynch and The Velvet Underground? Whatever - I'd imagine live it might all make sense: on here, it quite often doesn't.