Original, but Not Plain in any Sense
I knew as soon as I got to track 4, I was going to fail. I simply don't have the vocabulary to describe the originality of this, trying to think of every possible combination from Aphex Twin to a shooting range of exploding kaleidoscopes. In far less pretentious terms, this is both different and refreshing and a fantastic follow up to "At Breakfast, Dinner, Tea", released two years ago.
There's no warm-up for the idiosyncrasy. Opener 'Hiring a Car' sounds like a pinball game, blended with the Pages from Ceefax and spiked with a strong dose of acid. The result is a sweet, strange and reassuring mix which doesn't quite set the tone, but only because there is no overwhelming tone at all.
How do you follow that? 'Shake me by the Shoulders' is delivered at a far more sedate piece which evokes memories of old-time radio while 'Sky Shed' has a looped countdown which lapses into something not quite electro and not quite anything else. It's ambiguous and ambitious and works well, if not a little too late into the track.
'As Astro' kicks in and the Stourbridge based madman professes that he wants to live on the moon, my notes for the track read 'standard?' before getting to the last minute or so, which ascends into a riot. Musicianship, or a clever commentary on the space race? Neither probably.
I was forced to come to the conclusion that there is nothing standard about Mr Jones. 'Phosphor Burn-In' is wonderfully slow and twisted, a track you could sleep to, if it didn't sound like the soundtrack of a nightmare's bonus level. God knows what your subconscious would produce if it's sophorific qualities hit you.
Even a track which deals with the futility of dreaming ('Don't Rely on It, Don't Count on It'), sounds uplifting. It's the most 'stock' track of the 15, but still sounds decidedly unclassifiable, with neat guitars and 8-bit ticks. The shorter, interval tracks, like 'Umbrella Fight' and 'Satisfactory Substitute' almost feel as though there should be vocals over them, but with DJ scratches over an off-kilter melody on the latter, and a happy jaunt on the former, VBS manages to make his music do the talking.
There' s a lot of standouts on this album and of the tracks I've not mentioned yet, 'Stone' was a particular highlight. I got images of Link running around in his green garb, screaming this while slicing through those annoying knight things (Ironknuckles, apparently) in one of the old Zelda games.
The ending is quite anti-climactic. 'Pow' dies slowly and it doesn't seem fitting that an album that deals so fluently in misdirection finishes with a long drawn out period of near-silence. The contrast with the rest of it is a bit out of place.
Rob Jones has one of the most imaginative musical minds in the country. That, or he's actually psychotic. I'd love to see his browsing history and thought process. This will probably get the 'critically acclaimed' kiss of death but if ever a body of work deserves financial success on top of love from music writers far more important than me, this is it. I've never listened to an album which left me apprehensive of meeting the composer, but at the same time wanting to spend an hour in his head. This is impressive stuff.