Jennifer Gentle - Funny Creatures Lane
(Sillyboy)
Imagine if, in some weird twist of fate, the reconvention of Beefheart's Magic Band were booked on the same daytime talk show as children's music faves The Wiggles. Sharing the green room, members of the Magic Band might manage to lace The Wiggles' two-doobie-a-day habit with the most sinister of acids. The resulting performance would likely be quite amazing, as The Wiggles' tales of animals and fun take a more demented tone. It might even sound something like Jennifer Gentle. This Italian four-piece create, in simplist terms, joyful music. Giddy, happy, fun music that could even be described as children's music if it weren't also so twisted, weird, and unusual. Everything here is just a clamoring, dense wall of sound that towers over the listener but still somehow manages to fit itself into the most succinct and simple pop hooks. A wide array of instruments and "things" are used, from the dime-store kazoos that accentuate peppy choruses to the violins and cello that give a maudlin sound to the more mellow moments. In most songs it's hard to pick out lead instruments as the sound is just this big congealed mass. However, "Ultraviolet Lady Opera" is powered by a lead electric guitar part that is fantastically free-spirited and loopy, and a sitar drives the Kawabata-approved 9-minute raga freakout "Couple in Bed by a Green Flashing Light." The closest reference point to Jennifer Gentle's sound would be the freakier, more experimental sides of Elephant 6—like The Music Tapes, Bablicon, or Guignol—but there's something more pure here. If one looks past the weird conglomeration of sounds and arrangements (or derangements), this music still stands strong as great pop music.
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