Hey there true believers! I know that you readers of fakejazz put up with a lot of junk from us: needlessly cruel reviews, missed deadlines, and not enough hiphop... well, maybe not that last one, but come on. I needed a third. The point is we sometimes miss reviewing really good stuff. Anyway, I was out walking the other day, and I went into this little used CD shop that I know and love, and what was there, looking at me, begging me to purchase it? Why, Fog's self-titled CD. And, when I got home with my new (used) find, I popped it into my stereo, cranked the volume... and found it to be nothing like I expected! That's right, what I'd thought would be interesting experimental hiphop (there I go again!) in the vein of cLOUDDEAD and the Anti-Pop Consortium, was, instead, experimental turntablism with a gruff voiced narrator reciting stuff that just didn't make sense to my poor and frazzled mind, and, let me tell you, I was overcome with anger and hostility. That'll teach me to research before I buy!
Anyway, the point is, I kept listening, and what initially drew me in to Fog's strange world of destroyed indie pop, melancholy beats, and quick shifts in dynamics was the third track on this album, the wonderful "Pneumonia." What starts out like a typical bedroom pop song quickly shifts into something new and completely different, with a high pitched turntable scratching coming in where the guitar solo ostensibly would, and lyrics bordering on pure stream-of-consciousness filling out the rest of the song. I mean, check these out: "mold spores fill my lungs and silverfish hide in the Venetian blinds in the wintertime./In the bathroom, with the shower running and my clothes on I figured out that I hate you all." Not a very happy song, but still. I think it's just great.
And, speaking of cLOUDDEAD, the nasal voiced MC Doseone guests on one of the album's best tracks, the extremely sad "Glory", which features the anti-coda, "you haven't really tried something till you've quit/give it up to the quitters" —imagine this overtop bells, an archaic drum machine beat, and scratching, and that's basically the song. Really simple, and yet, very, very powerful. The same thing goes for the following track, which, honestly, at times sounds like Radiohead, but only if they were even more dispossessed and unhappy than they are (and, unrelated tangent, here, people, but does Thom Yorke's hatred of modern life just seem a little contrived? I mean, really. Just a little?), and you'd have the song. Pretty much, I mean. It's got a lot of emotional depth and weight that I'm not going into because I'm a lazy sucker, but there you go.
Anyway, it's in your best interest to seek this out. Even if it's only for the songs I mentioned, those songs are so crazily good and well put together that it's difficult not to like them. The themes in this album are present and visual (I'd say it's all about the anger and frustration that comes with not knowing what you want with your life), and that heightens its impact. Even without them this would be a stellar debut. Recommended.
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