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Album Review
by SashaS
4-7-2004
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| 'Moo Sick': four Seriously Groovy acts |
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Various + Jet Johnson: 'Moo Sick' + 'Death Song'
(Seriously Groovy/Soda)
‘Moo Sick’ a sampler for the summer?
Various
'Moo Sick'
Seriously Groovy is a London-based label with a roster we happen to like a lot but is yet to evoke great buying enthusiasm with their exquisite wares… Sure, we know you were busy with the mainstream’s hyping/advertising/televisualised blitzing of your senses with material that bypasses any critical faculty… Lucky for you, the good people at Seriously Groovy have compiled a disc of 13 cuts, ‘Moo Sick’, that presents its A&R mind-sets rather well. Actually, the main reason for this compilation to celebrate the label’s 9th birthday.
The first thing you have to expect from the quartet of artists here is diversity, as much geographical as artistic. econoline are Brits, emetrex are from the States, Mother Goose from Finland and Jet Johnson from the neighbouring Norway. Creative miscellany is demonstrated rather well by emetrex who kick in this sampler with a trio of cuts that are all-so-blissfully different.
‘Hammer In My Skull’ sounds as its title, punchy and rocky with a West Coast breeze blowing through its smoky vista until the paranoid ending; ‘Secret Parts’ is gentler, mellower and so intimately intense whilst ‘Swimming’ takes you floating on a psychedelic cloud to the ‘Never-never land’.
They also close the compilation impressively with a new cut, ‘Nothing But The Blue Skies’, that sounds like a brighter end of a David Lynch soundtrack… [Current LP: ‘Metacomet’, shortly to be succeeded by ‘Wish Me Dead’.]
Ethereal, total emotional wipe-out is econoline’s ‘Goodbye Blue Monday’ that is preceded by a wake-up call-like shouty ‘I’m Plagued’ and thus sandwiching in the more reflective ‘Go Team!’ that picks up its dynamics midway through and grows, evolves and erupts! Their current album ‘music is stupid’ is well worth exploring and, on the whole, can possibly cleanse your evils!
Jet Johnson’s ‘Micropolitan’ - the title track of their debut album - sounds like the wind is blowing from the Artic until the fragile-but-sexy Caroline Nesbo voices her presence. The lo-fi mood is kept on for the acoustic version of their first single ‘Donnie’ with band recalling the Young Marble Giants here. ‘What’s With Your Heart’ sounds so longing it made me wish I never step into my local Tesco and see that gorgeous shop assistant.
Mother Goose follow JJ with reversal of speed and blast with ‘Feelies Feeling’ that rocks loud without losing melodic content. ‘Cocaine Mirror’ depicts the mood of after-seeing-your-pusher and drifting into the desert-like haze… The band‘s third offering, ‘Common Language’, gets more introspective and extensive; with other material on their album ‘Junior Magic’, it makes their creativity ideal for the Tower of Babel we’ve let be erected… Mother Goose could help it come down by making the process easier.
Tracks included here are exclusives and different mixes; if you buy one compilation this year - and at £5.99 (inc. p&p) from the label‘s site - it hardly has any competition on value-for-money crap-mart. Do yourself an educational favour and invest in ‘Moo Sick’. It will make you feel better and probably cure few pop-induced ills.
8/10
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Jet Johnson
‘Death Song’
Jet Johnson's simultaneously released EP, ‘Death Song’, is a four-tracker plus bonus and a video of the lead song that sounds as if Julianne Regan [of All About Eve] were fronting Joy Division: lilting in a classy, elegant, alluring, pensive and gripping as the dreaded ‘Denver boot’. ‘Le Jet’ picks up tempo on the more experimental, techno-side of their art with beats underlining Caroline's hovering like an angel on a cumulus.
‘Rekkedal’ dives into atmospherics, sounding like a sonic landscape that gets disturbingly taken over by stormy chords; ‘9000 Men’ explores pastoral some more with a vague guitar accompaniment and wistful vocal… Someone recently wrote of anatomy of melancholy, this is more like cherishing it that allows you to “immerse [your]self in a destructive element” (© Colleridge].
This single is a tonal darkness that should make your days brighter and nights as cathartic as if it were FAIRY perfect.
9/10
SashaS
4-7-2004
‘Moo Sick’ compilation is released 05 July 2004 by Seriously Groovy
Jet Johnson’s EP ‘Death Song’ is also available from Soda/Seriously Groovy
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