Last Updated on December 16, 2023
On first listening, there’s a tremendous innocence to the sound of the album. I was half expecting it to sound like the sort of music I made with friends on a cheap tape player when I was a teenager. That being said the track titles are probably a bit more far-out (and spicy) than anything I could cobble together back then.
Jazz flute.
Some of the tracks sort of get lost and then stop rather than conclude. There’s a looseness to this album that is fun. There are some odd EQ and mixing choices and more than a handful of sonic noises that are symptomatic of someone using a recording studio as an instrument and having a blast doing so.
This is an album that ambles through the tracks. Somehow never quite latching onto anything cliché, but dangerously close to the precipice of parody.
This has been described as a ‘flute album’ by some people, and I’m not sure that’s fair. Sure, there’s flute on it. But it’s in a gentle pan-pipes type of way rather than the full-on flute assault of a band like Jethro Tull.
It would be easy to say that the flooootiness gives some of this album a kung-fu vibe. So that’s what I’m going to say. However, this style of Kung-Fu is more Jackie Chan than Wu-Tang.
I’m pretty sure I recognise some synth sounds as presets on my Prophet. Although I don’t know where the comedy fog horn in the second track came from. The coast?
There’s a theremin sound in the mix on track four that I can’t say for definite isn’t being created by someone blowing hard through pinched lips, possibly through a bit of tissue paper wrapped around a comb.
I find it slightly odd that people are proclaiming this album as some sort of brave leap forward. In terms of originality, there isn’t much. I’ve heard albums like this plenty of times before. But just because art isn’t original doesn’t mean it’s bad.
Some bits of the album are a bit ‘wobbly’ and directionless, but the overall vibe is pretty decent. It’s not the sort of album you listen to while stroking your chin and looking for themes and motifs. But I’ll cheerfully listen to this again. Next time I might even make it all the way to the end of the album.
