Pip Proud and Tom Carter - Catch a Cherub
(Emperor Jones)
This round-the world collaboration between Charalambides' guitarist Tom Carter (Austin, Texas) and Australian Pip Proud looks great on paper. Pairing a 21st century avant guitarist with an eccentric musician/poet/burnout from the '60s is inspired casting. Unfortunately, paper doesn't talk. Even worse, Proud does... over and over and over again. The story goes that Pip sent Tom some stories over which Carter added his guitar accompaniment. What we're left with sounds like the psychotic ramblings of a urine-stained street bum. Imagine Moondog crossed with Aqualung.
I'm not in the least interested in spoken-word albums set to music, and this one doesn't work on either account. If you're a fan of Carter's occasionally astounding experimental fretwork or a Charalambides completist, you'll be too distracted by the Roky Erickson-meets-Syd Barrett oxymoronic anecdotes to ever get through the entire disk. I tried... I really tried to give this a chance. But Proud's often unintelligible, heavily-accented stream-of-conscious nonsequitors lost me midpoint every time. Save yourself the time and money and don't bother trying to figure it out on your own.
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