The Monkey Puzzle:
The Pattern Familiar:
Slowfoot:
CD/Download:
Out May 12th:
★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
The word 'improvisation' can cast fear into many a more sensitive music-fan's mind - add 'Free jazz' and 'experimental' and a swift exit can often be the result. The Monkey Puzzle is one such project that might incur wrath or respect, depending on your bent that is.
Formed of This Heat's imaginative Charles Hayward, Pinski Zoo's Nick Doyne-Ditmas and verbal voyeur Viv Corringham (a sort of Lydia Lunch-cum-Patti Smith-cum-Laurie Anderson character with poetic license), The Monkey Puzzle employ jazzy discordance, harsh throatsong, ad-hoc percussion and tribal disturbances to sound out their collective oeuvre, some of which is pretty, much of which is atonal and aloof.
So, for example, part way through Orange Car you get some semblance of a repetitive beat, before the whole thing disintegrates into a powder, a dust that is blown away just as quickly as it is ground out. And so the whole album pans out in much the same way. From the breathy and disturbing House Of Loss to the set's closing crashing thunderfuck that is Room, the ironically-titled The Pattern Familiar (if they meant drum patterns, NONE are familiar) is a treasure chest of everything musically imaginable but none of which is particularly valuable to anyone else but its creators. An album of two halves, one essential one not.
Slowfoot:
CD/Download:
Out May 12th:
★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
Formed of This Heat's imaginative Charles Hayward, Pinski Zoo's Nick Doyne-Ditmas and verbal voyeur Viv Corringham (a sort of Lydia Lunch-cum-Patti Smith-cum-Laurie Anderson character with poetic license), The Monkey Puzzle employ jazzy discordance, harsh throatsong, ad-hoc percussion and tribal disturbances to sound out their collective oeuvre, some of which is pretty, much of which is atonal and aloof.
So, for example, part way through Orange Car you get some semblance of a repetitive beat, before the whole thing disintegrates into a powder, a dust that is blown away just as quickly as it is ground out. And so the whole album pans out in much the same way. From the breathy and disturbing House Of Loss to the set's closing crashing thunderfuck that is Room, the ironically-titled The Pattern Familiar (if they meant drum patterns, NONE are familiar) is a treasure chest of everything musically imaginable but none of which is particularly valuable to anyone else but its creators. An album of two halves, one essential one not.