Ian Svenonius is a pop cult theorist in the tradition of Jonathan Richman, Lux Interior and Fred Schneider. Like all these visionaries, he's entirely comfortable in his own skin and intent on flaunting his sense of the utterly ridiculous in order to express and remain true to his artistic vision. So there's no end of silliness on Experimental Music, the new album from his current project Chain & the Gang. In fact it's quite daft from start to finish. Though this prevents it from attaining the intense pleasurable heights of previous Svenonious outfits like Make Up which also had more serious intent, it still has plenty to recommend it.
Like Lux Interior, the man is essentially a curator. In thrall to the golden rockabilly garage punk and soul legacy of the fifties and sixties when rock and roll was still, young, innocent and simply thrilled to be alive, his records revivify the essence of this age. That spirit is expressed well by the title and opening track which I've posted here, which in many ways is pure Jonathan.
Elsewhere Svenonius purloins plenty more from the well thumbed alternative manuals of American 'bad taste'. So if you're familiar with the work of John Waters, Johnny Depp, The Cramps, Jim Jarmusch, The B52s, Iggy Pop, Jon Spencer, the original Nuggets record and you're still determined that a part of you will never ever grow up, then Experimental Music is the record for you.
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