must be something in the water, but in the same year that james murphy has announced the latest lcd soundsystem album will be the last, simon smerdon announces that this is the final album in the mothboy saga.
of course, such news has not hit the headlines in quite the same way, but i happen to think such an approach is admirable, as this gives simon an clean slate to delve into new avenues of music experimentation, and having listened to this album now for a month its clear from the 63 minutes that make up bunny, simon has itchy feet.
while back in the day, when the first mothboy album was released, simon described the music to me as ‘dark hop’, a set of deep and dark looped beats, and moody overdubs. now we have come to the end of the road, the moods are more varied, at times, the beats are lighter, and there are even moments of unexpected melodic beauty.
that’s not to say bunny is a lightweight pop album in any way, as any album with a cover featuring blood stained hoodie wearing rabbit is not going to be one for granny on boxing day.
as with the previous albums simon has scoured his contact book and drafted in all manner of extras to flesh out his sonic fantasies. again this includes his old playlouder associate, akira the don (making it loud and proud his involvement with each of the mothboy albums), ex-boo radleys martin carr, and the eye brow raising addition of ted parsons (prong/swans/foetus) on drums.
so with such an array of talent, what of the album ?
well, following a doom laden atmospheric opener, the listener is then dropped into the dark hop funk of move (too close), with its eerie synths, spooked out electro vibes, and rhythm riding wordplay by equivalent its a cracking start to the proceedings. you/me is a late night synthetic disturber with snatched vocals adding to the clicked up paranoia, while cala nova is the first of the tracks featuring the drum loops of ted parsons. starting off as a lost tackhead jam session, the addition of electric piano then redirects the listener a to moody jazz club, and ends up being rather special while the listener awaits the arrival of mc 900 ft jesus telling more tales of fire related troubles.
it’s not long before the momentary laid back vibe is brought back into sharp focus with the urban styled click-n-bump electro’d beats of motion control, which in a fair world would be getting a lot of attention by genre jumping radio jocks such is the tracks very-now production and genuine airwave appeal (yes, i’m looking at you mary ann hobbes).
won’t is a fairly run of the mill slow-n-low trip hop loop which doesn’t really add much to the proceedings, though this then drops into the light and airy, but totally essential, johnny nemo, featuring comic book obsessed akira the don (johnny nemo used to be a character in the excellent deadline comic and had the best head crushing boots in town, oh and a big f*ck off gun of course). so, while akira does his pop referencing thing, simon surrounds his vocals with all manner of bass-n-space electro weirdness, none more so than the mid section when the beats are side tracked for future style of london styled ambience giving the impression that akira has finally been sucked into the wire that he spends so much time on. the track then closes with akira appealing to simon not to retire the mothboy set up.
such human openness is unusual and weird to hear on an album that predominantly lives and breathes inside the hidden corners of machines, but cannot help but induce a flow of love to all concerned.
other highlights include the unexpected addition of rocked out fuzz guitars for the short blast of my love, martin carrs sweet vocals embedded within structured white noise beats, bouncy synths, but essentially a lovely slice of heart warming electro pop of version 2 (pontcanna stone), the epic subway song with theatrical piano chord crashes, over the top dramatic vocals by robert conroy, and the all important mood soothing closer, drive home safely with very cool jazz sax set amongst the weird-n-twisted ambience.
and so there is it, the end of the mothboy era.
all i can say is that if you are interested in hearing electronic music that challenges, threatens, and steps out out of line from time to time, you could a lot worse than checking out the mans small but perfectly formed catalogue.
highly recommended.
more detail : here