Just got notice about this new label, to me anyway (how does that keep happening? I have to give in to the idea I will never possibly ever know about half the labels out there....that should make me happy, and it does....it's just impossible). They had this nice looking split single from Lucky Pineapple and Prizzy Prizzy Please.
Lucky pineapple kicks off the A-Side with their track 'Kablooey' an instrumental with some wakka wakka porn guitar, an inevitable soundtrack for an action scene. But it immediately changes direction over to salsa-dance, brass fueled explosion. It's got a Mahavishnu Orchestra sound combined with a south of the border influence. It could be this high strung piccolo snare and conga sound. An orchestral melody winds around this main piece, and then takes off in all kinds of energetic directions, a chase scene scored by Santana. It slows down and gets somber almost melancholic for a minute. Slightly western with a lonesome Calexico bleating trumpet. Each instrument taking a turn driving out the melodies...this could easily belong on Electric Cowbell's idiosyncratic label.
They have recently called it quits and this probably marks their final existence on vinyl. But it's a classy way to bow out.
Prizzy Prizzy Please, on Super Volcano get right to work with high falsetto vocals from Mark Pallman over a warm Rhodes organ, stoking the sexy fire. But that intimacy quickly turns into this massive epic track with huge instrumentation, just an unbelievable amount of engineering, sounding as overblown and produced as all of the greatest excesses of 80's rock put together. Genesis, Peter Gabriel, the soundtrack to American Psycho. They get really blown out towards the end of this one with no limit to the compression after all it's not just a regular volcano, they are the biggest the best.
It's cock rock made out of unlikely elements: 4 out of the 6 members blasting saxophone and trumpet. A guitar, or a heavily distorted organ more likely, takes this energy to manic, raw places. The vocals get screamy, nearly glam metal with a dash of R & B on some heavy meth, the veins bulging - and someone's head is ready to explode. It's a sort of Jamiroquai meets The Make Up. Oodles of over the top emotion. It really begs the question if all these excesses of previous decades be distilled into one completely cocksure track... They are probably as close as anyone's going to get.
I can hear the instrumentation similarities but really they're coming from two different places completely, you have the subtle, music speaking for itself complex jazz arrangements versus a glam party explosion.
I'm not familiar with anything else on the label, and there's at least 10 other albums from these guys...plenty to check out. Dexterity Press out of New Haven, CT did an amazing job with the heavy cardstock matchbook design and letterpress printing on the sleeve, truly setting the bar high for the tracks inside on flouresecnt banana yellow vinyl.
Get it from Karate Body Records out of Louisville, KY.
Nice art. Too bad this band probably sucks.
ReplyDelete