Melbourne, Austalia's Bananagun are the hip but goofy kids in the school playground. The ones with the record collections full of artists you'd never heard, the ones who wrote meandering songs and made whacky little films together for their own amusement.
They're undoubtedly clever clever as their debut album readily attests from the off, but the esssential ingredient is fun, so I haven't been remotely irritated listening through to it regularly since yesterday morning, when it was released. It's a very fine record indeed!
Here is a band who try at all points to touch all inspirational bases, so long as they are day glo technicolour ones. Their ambition is quite astonishing. They want to recapture the funky glory of Os Mutantes, Fela Kuti, Funkadelic and the out there peaks of Sixties Psychedelia all at once. Remarkably, they manage to do so.
A parallel could probably be drawn with The Brian Jonestown Massacre who took a similarly historical approach, though their inspirations were different ones from Bananagun's. In many respects this album could only have been made in the here and now, as the sounds they source have never been so readily available before.
Bananagum are essentially obscurists. Take a look at the playlists they've posted on their Spotify page. There will be very few people who you've actually heard of. But while this could come across as elitist, it never does here, because this is one of the most consistently immediate and funky records I've heard in months. Years even.
You could probably write an essay on this kind of pick and mix exoticism which would certainly include Psychedelia, Funk, Krautrock, Afrofunk, Madchester, Daisy Age Hip Hop and Dee Lite. But why bother when you can just listen to this. It's urgent, far out and utterly laidback at one and the same time. Relentlessly and fruitily poppy.
I think this may well be the soundtrack to one of the strangest summers I'll ever experience. The summer of Lockdown. It's hot out there, but I'm not allowed to go out and enjoy it, at least not in the way I'd llike to, so I'll stay in here with this instead. The True Story of Bananagun one of Covid-19's great consolation prizes.
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