A real leftfield choice. But this record is completely fabulous and should be heard by more people than it probably has been this year.
I've been listening to three new releases over the last couple of days. All noteworthy in quite different ways. The latest Tame Impala which I'll write about shortly. The first from Mush which I posted about yesterday. And this, Everything Looks So Real the astonishing debut album from Brighton Jazz Punkers CHOPCHOP. I've been looking forward to hearing it since I first heard tracks from them last year. It doesn't disappoint for a moment.
Grounded in great musicianship of the Miles Fifties and Sixties school this could probably be an exercise in taste if it chose to be. Instead it takes a far more adventurous and riotous road, both in terms of its playing and most of all, the fabulous, demented free-form delivery of vocalist and frontman Xelis De Toro. One part Peter Sellers' Indian Doctor, one part Manuel from Fawlty Towers, one part his madcap self, he's a perfect focal point for the raging storm CHOPCHOP brew up. Making perfect sense yet none at all at one and the same time.
This is beatnik politico expressionism of the finest order. De Toro and compadres deliver the kind of record you've probably never quite heard before. Anarchic, surreal, angry, literate, taking it's cues from John Lydon and David Byrne as well as Andre Breton and Franz Kafka while tipping its hat to Cannonball Adderley. It's also very timely, painting a vivid and striking picture of the moment of flux we find ourselves in.
Full of questions that demand to be answered about the direction we seem to find ourselves going in. De Toro voices the agonies of a man swimming against the torrent of a river in full flow. In Lifetime he takes his lead from Talking Heads Once in a Lifetime to rail against the madness of multicultural societies in denial of the fact that whatever happens they will remain multicultural societies. In This is Not Your Home he continues on the same theme quoting from P.J.Harvey's astonishing Glastonbury appropriation of John Donne. The bell tolls for thee mate. It tolls for thee. It's all equally apposite, thought provoking, amusing, stirring and highly, highly enjoyable.
I really hope this album breaks out beyond the confines of Brighton hipster-ism. Because it's a record that deserves to be heard. Never resting for a moment, raging against the dying of the light. Funky, funny, full on and full of fire. As Bob Dylan and Johnny Nash both knew. there are more questions than answers. Enjoy yourselves. It's later than you think. Altogether absolutely fabulous! Make sure you hear it.
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