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| from www.absorb.org |
j.g. thirlwell, aka foetus, aka baby zizanie, aka manorexia,
aka steroid maximus, aka clint ruin, aka wiseblood, aka dj otefsu, seems
to have a lot of aliases. perhaps this indicates a type of attention deficit
disorder, where he is not able to stay and concentrate on one single thing
for any period of time. well, my pop-psychology may be dead-on, because
'ectopia' is a very bizarre, diverse, and engaging album that goes in
every possible musical direction at once, never standing still, and progressing
prograssing progrossing.
and it fits in perfectly on mike patton's ipecac label. 'ectopia' is very
cinematic; each track makes the listener envision a strange film where
this madness is the background music. the range is a hybrid of pimps and
hoes, galactic heroes, alien hoes and pimps, dodgy drug-dealers, ministers,
priests, mia farrow in rosemary's baby, ron o'neal in superfly, clark
gable in it happened one night, and john lurie in stranger than paradise.
sweeping orchestration, horns, percussion, funk. at times beautiful, like
in "naught" at the 2:16 mark, slow, sprawling textures of strings,
harmonizing and fraternizing. eerie voices haunt and chant their way through
"bad day in greenpoint". and then it mutates into a mechanical
drama piece, where it sounds as though an orchestra is being compacted
through the workings of a giant clocktower. lots of horns and chants,
steeples and marbles.
fans of ipecac and people who enjoy a bit of madness in their music will
get a kick out of this. a record that makes perfect sense in a world of
nonsense. or is it the other way around? the perfect soundtrack to a terry
gilliam film that has never been made.
review by philip raffaele