Loud Farm

When Dominique Leone's track, Duyen came on, I honestly almost shit myself, thinking it was a long-lost Wings b-side that Tangerine Dream had collaborated on with McCartney.  A few more listens to some of Leone's other tracks proved to be as similarly evocative, and how to say this...confusing.  On Sometimes You've Got to Be Happy, imagine The Dismemberment Plan covering Yoko Ono.  I tried and it was pretty fucking strange.

But I don't want "strange" to sound pejorative here.  You can call the guy you saw in the dirty basement in LiPo lounge playing cassette loops, whilst dancing around in native headress and blowing into a harmonica strange.

Yes, I grant you that, but this is different: this is strange in a good way.  Take Leone's Clairvoyage, a 12-minute disco-mutated folk song that turns into what sounds like an ABBA-centric dance freakout with Barry Gibb smoking a crack pipe and shouting James Brown lyrics. Seriously.

Well, then there's Nellie McKay, which sounds like Rush going to hell and back on a golden Moog.  Or maybe, it's what Beethoven would have sounded like if he had a synthesizer.  If you're not interested or intrigued yet, you may never be--but this is fascinating shit.  There's deeply rooted music theory meshed with the most bizarre parts of dance and electronic music.  Nothing else to say but strange...strange, indeed.

Preview by: Adam Wood