|
by ladie | Tuesday, July 1
Graney/Moore and Co let rip on an album that sounds like a soundtrack
to a crazy cruise ship voyage, reads somewhere between Kafka and Kerouac
in its abstract hilarity and poignant realism andmoving from Barry White-esque
(You Had To Be Drunk) to early Bowie on a big acid bender (Only Passin'
Through) and stopping at every milestone along the road to craziness.
Less of a journeying album and more like a snapshot of one wild night,
We Wuz Curious certainly doesn't betray what the title hints at. It takes
a stab at nihilism, doomsday-ism, fascism, futurism and fatalism, all
with tongue firmly in cheek and with true commitment to artistic statement.
Whether I have hit the nail on the head with any of these -ism's remains
to be seen as each song meanders, turning back on itself, corkscrewing
and scratching its head before reaching some semblance of an end. The
verdict? Well, I'm still clueless, but I'm smiling.
There were a few highlights for me though!
Let's Kill God Again, the single from the album, and most certainly the
easiest and catchiest listen, for some reasons reminds me of Parliament
and Funkadelic. It's fun AND it's dark. Who woulda thought?
I Like To Be Haunted takes on the mantle of the Walrus of Love where You
Had To Be Drunk left it at the started of the album. Though it certainly
doesn't carry any of the trademark sexy of White's music, it grooves similarly,
marrying itself in a way also to the Beastie Boys 'The In Sound From Way
Out).
Punk Dies is all out hilarious. See the following lyric excerpt:
"Real punks live on cough medicine
They weren't built to last
You've had too many square meals, man
We can't see your bones"
The final track Crime and Underwear (and again I'm guessing at the cerebral
flow here) digs at the way our culture seems to be drawn to the trivial
and superficial things in life, while often glancing over heavier issues
with token and fleeting sympathy/empathy.
Backing the curl and rasp of Dave Graney's ever-present voice is a band
that fortunately understands the intent of the songs. The Lurid Yellow
Mist, as a whole, run with and rejoice in the music.
It's a heavy trip, right? Sort of. They make it very fun, very funny and
all the time avoid being pigeonholed (except maybe for being completely
and steadfastly left field).
The Dwarf- Online magazine July 2008
WE WUZ CURIOUS - The Lurid Yellow Mist Featuring Dave Graney and Clare
Moore (Illustrious Artists/Fuse)
Chances at this stage of the game are that you'll either be curious or
have your switch flipped permanently to "Off". If it's the latter
it's a pity because Graney, Moore and Co continue to come up with interesting
ways to work outside the straight-up rock idiom, doing it very much on
their own terms.
So there. I said it. It's not Rock. Well maybe just a bit. Mostly it's
a mix of lounge pop, psych-funk, jazz and outright weirdness, all blended
in a cocktail shaker of lyrical intrigue. In fact, Dave Graney's words
are so ironic that he risks giving Socrates a run for his philosophical
money.
Whether it's in the stinging "Punk Dies" ("Real punks go
down fast...real punks life on cough medicine") or the reflective
"I Needed Someone To Find Me" where he muses he could have "paid
more attention to my major mask", it's an autobiographical outing
for Dave Graney. The Lurid Mist, his band of four years, is up to the
task and in perfect sympathy. They're all seasoned players bringing a
tremendous amount of skill and musical input to the party but for me,
it's the bass-playing of Surrealist Stu Thomas and drumming of Clare Moore
that deserves the spotlight. Unobtrusive but masters of their groove,
they lay an impeccable bedrock.
If the "major mask" was the persona that fronted The Coral Snakes,
the long-serving Graney band that produced an Australian mega-charting
album like "You Wanna Be There But You Don't Wanna Travel",
who's doing the talking these days? There's probably scope for a thesis
or two there. Who calls a song with a title like "Let's Kill God
Again" a "crowd pleasing radio single"? And releases it
just in time for Australia being invaded by 200,000 Catholic "pilgrims"
for World Youth Day? I'm anticipating the traffic chaos that's about to
grip Sydney and praying it was deliberate.
"I'm In The Future Now" and "Let's Kill God Again"
almost present the band as the Choral (sic) Snakes with big choruses and
lush feels. Production was undertaken at Melbourne's Sing Sing Studios
so you know it sounds great.
"Bring My Liar" couples a gentle Moore-Graney harmony refrain
to a big bassline and jazzy guitar and keys, while Sir David spins a self-referential
lyrical web over seven--plus minutes
"We Wuz Curious" goes all sorts of places. "Junk Time"
sounds like Soft Cell electro-pop and stands apart from the wah-wah funk
of "I Like To Be Haunted". While there's not much of the driving
rock of Graney at his commercial peak, there's no reason the bulk of his
audience from those days shouldn't pick up on this. The intellect and
humour that was always inherent is shining even brighter. Europe might
be the place to take this (The Lurid Yellow Mist are fresh from a jaunt
through those parts supporting Nick Cave) in the immediate future. - The
Barman - i94bar.com
"Album is fucking KILLER... (no filler)
Are you fucking with me?
LOVE from BA"
Barry Adamson
|
WE WUZ CURIOUS
If I asked you, out of any artist in the world, who was going to put out
a record that combined the soul funk of classic era Sly Stone with perverse
wigged out lyrics, who would you choose? Your five seconds are up and
the glorious answer is Dave Graney and The Lurid Yellow Mist. This is
a stunning, weird, trip to a strange land. Capturing your ears from the
second she starts it’s the sound of a band finding something new.
Dave and wife Clare Moore have been pushing for this sonic revelation
for a while now and they’ve finally hit on it with this amazing record.
Reinvention is tough when you’ve been going for almost thirty years.
People want to stick you in a box, label it and move on. That seemed to
have happened with Dave over the last few years. But the man is built
of sturdier stuff. He flies above the expectations cast upon him and digs
his own idiosyncratic patch. Sometimes that patch connects and sometimes
it confounds. This time around it’s going to slay you. The music
is incredible… multi layered and beautifully played, it twists and
turns to many unexpected places but rather than disorientate, it delights
you with its playfulness. A new kind of jazz, soul psych. It’s heard
to perfection on genius track Lets Kill God Again. A tour de force of
bug eyed arranging and killer lyrics. You get lost in it. You remember
what music is for. To take you somewhere. Lift you out of the mundane
world for a few minutes. Connect you to something bigger. Other standouts
on a uniformly strong album include, Punk Dies, I Come from the Clouds,
Junk Time(footy talk taken somewhere wild!) and Bring Me a Liar. But it’s
all good and here’s why. Stuart Perera, Stu Thomas and Mark Fitzgibbon
are amazing musicians and they deliver great performances on all these
songs. A great band playing together with style and intuition. Dave’s
lyrics tell funny, sad and caustic stories...he hasn’t pulled out
stuff like this since Night Of The Wolverine(one of this country’s
best albums). And, as always, his secret weapon is his better half. Clare
Moore is a national treasure. A godhead drummer who also arranges, she
adds freaked out Italian horror movie sounds on vibes, keys, percussion
and vocals. A unique and visionary talent, the woman deserves props of
the highest order. Get this record. It’s from another world.
Ben Michaels- Rhythms magazine
Love your new album too, although Crime and Underwear has
so much of a hold on my tiny mind right now that I'm finding it hard to
focus on the album as a whole just yet. As a song in itself it shares
this exceedingly rare quality with both parts of Night of the Wolverine
(among others) which is that it's coming from a clear and calm and reflective
place, with humour and all these great turns of phrase, and yet it's still
utterly devastating, more so than a hundred songs about saying goodbye
to your woman for the last time. If I had to describe exactly what it
is about your music that I'm trying to apply to what I do myself that'd
probably be it. To hold oneself back from being grim and miserable just
for the sake of it but still write the songs that hurt. Men, It Can Be
Done!
Peter Escott
"the music is complex. references zip by like chord changes
do in other people's music. myriad textures float you on clouds to
the sky to bask in the light, then chords dark enough to drag you
into the earth do just that. all underpinned by a groove tricks
you into thinking you're standing in the one spot. the music here has
two functions, to be the staging, props, sound effects and action
in the play that is taking place here... and secondly, to be the red herring
that tricks you into thinking these are just weirdos dreamt up by a fertile
imagination and not something closer to home. if you lose yourself in
this music you just might find yourself in it."
Kim Salmon
"Your album is marvellous, evocative of Lalo Schifrin's very rich
early 70s patch - and a bit Sketches Of Spain but with better lyrics.
Brendan Gallagher"
“ ‘We Wuz Curious’ is high drama, high gloss blue-eyed
soul music processed through a wah-wah pedal and a dictionary. I
dig it.”
Stephen Cummings
We Wuz Curious - The Lurid Yellow Mist
Illustrious Artists/Fuse
In an era where playing the wobble-board secures you a spot in the ARIA
Music Hall of Fame, or where being a soapie star (or being married to
one) entitles you to spray yourself all over the “pop” charts,
Dave Graney and Clare Moore stand-out as being some of the few remaining
musicians who are interested in putting out decent records.Graney and
Moore have been dishing out rock’n’roll to Australian audiences
since the late 70s as integral members of bands such as The Moodists.
In the 1990’s Dave was crowned “King of Pop”, which made
a nice change from the usual (unworthy) recipients. Graney and Moore's
latest offering under the guise of The Lurid Yellow Mist - "We Wuz
Curious" - is a strong album which delves into a range of genres
including funkified jazz, post-punk and electro.
The opening track, 'You Had to Be Drunk', has a late 70's sound library
quality to it, with watery, dreamy keyboards remniscient of Ramsey Lewis'
better efforts of the decade and wah-wah infused guitar. Coupled with
Dave's beat poet-style delivery, 'You Had to Be Drunk' makes for a nice,
eaaaaasy introdction to the album. The next track sees Dave singing 'I
Come From the Clouds'; a blues-meets-jazz style track. 'Lets Kill God
Again' is a driving, poweful tune which leaves me hoping that it will
cause as much controversy as when the Beatles declared themselves more
popular that Christ in 1966. I totally dug on the strangeness of 'Junk
Time', which is a primitive electronica track composed by Clare Moore.
Other standouts on the album include 'I Like to be Haunted' (a loungey
groove) and 'Punk Dies' (a funky but sarcastic jab at punk pretenders).The
press release for "We Wuz Curious" states that it is "fresh
and strange"... and it is....thank god. I can rest easy in the knowledge
that unlike the rest of Aussie rock stars these days, The Lurid Yellow
Mist wont be teaming up with Paul Mac to collaborate on any dance remixes.
Let's here it for intelligent, groovy music.DJ Emma Peel.
|
|
We Wuz Curious - The Lurid Yellow Mist feat. Dave Graney & Clare
Moore
AH, he's a true enigma, that Dave Graney. Over a 30-odd year career, he
and long-time collaborator Clare Moore have made an artform out of reinvention.
Starting out in a punk band in Mount Gambier in the late-70s, the pair
has retained that fierce DIY aesthetic while mining the best and worst
of music to create their own unique sound.
The first single from We Wuz Curious, their 20th album release, is a strong
case in point.
Titled Let's Kill God Again, it is a soul-funk-jazz trip, with the catchiest
of all perverse choruses delivered in Graney's highest falsetto.
Tightly arranged and lushly produced thanks to Melbourne's Sing Sing Studio,
it is likely to thrill everyone bar the World Youth Day pilgrims.
Sharing an intelligent and oft-humorous bent that is seen in the likes
of Ween, Graney, Moore and band, The Lurid Yellow Mist aims to confound
and avoid pigeonholing.
After touring Europe supporting Nick Cave, Graney is playing Warrnambool
tonight in support of We Wuz Curious.
The record opens with You Had To Be Drunk, with Graney adopting his alluring
lounge-bar croon over a slowly snaking funk groove.
Junk Time, a weird and nihilistic look at killing the clock, is haunting
electro-pop that adds to the dark mood by fighting itself for direction.
I Like To Be Haunted is Graney at his playful best over a tightly-wound,
soulful, wah-wah groove, his breathy plea documents what really moves
him.
I'm In the Future Now, co-written by bass player Stu Thomas, is a ready-made
radio cut, with Graney feeling the heady rush of leaving all his troubles
behind.
But with jazzy shifting keys, Motown-like bass and a slashing classic
guitar solo, it is the sound of the best parts of the past.
Bring Me My Liar hilariously quotes former US Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld's `there are known unknowns' speech.
Over a loping, jazz-tinged groove, it menacingly asks `are you f***king
with me?'
There is little of the harder rock that saw Triple J champion Graney,
but its pretty much all here - funk, soul, blues, jazz and lounge-pop,
garnished with a knowing nod of cheese.
On his 20th album, the self-described King of Pop live ups to his claim
to remain ahead of the pack. It is a grand, defiantly left-field and consistently
strong record. It has me very curious for more for one of Australia's
great talents.
SHANE FOWLES on 28/08/2008
Warrnambool Standard
|
|
