Bablicon - The Orange Tapered Moon
(Misra)
This mini-LP should be enough to convince anyone that Bablicon are more than a Soft Machine clone--eight
tracks that run the gamut between free jazz freakout and electronic goofyness, The Orange Tapered Moon is a
masterpiece of imagination and creativity. Not to say the Soft Machine influence is gone, but Stockhausen,
Cecil Taylor, and a bunch of other influences are now distilled with Bablicon's original voice.
The opening track, "Silicon)(Bucktown," is a full-on pop song, catchy and repetitive as all hell, with zany
string and horn arrangements, all driven by a slightly fuzzed-out Wurlitzer line. It rocks, too, but
"Mu-Med/Moy Marmatman" soon throws the album into high weirdness mode.
Over the next 6 tracks Bablicon prove to be one of the most imaginative bands in music today, doing all kinds
of crazy things with saxophones and samplers. The record never gets tiring or self-indulgent--this should
appeal to fans of both adventurous and highly structured music. Perhaps Bablicon are the perfect mix of
electronics and live instrumentation, improvisation and composition, humour and seriousness.
"210(2)" begins as a Stravinsky-esque classical woodwind piece, with drummer Jeremy Barnes clattering
away slightly at first, then more fully. By the end of the piece it has been transformed into something uniquely
Bablicon.
The album has a definite anthem, not "An Orange Moon" but the closing "An Orange Pumpkin Glowing Moon
Ensemble," a sort of update of Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets" done by a group of schizophrenics. The
perfect way to close this album, it suggests what is to come on their double album, coming out this fall.
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