Koonda Holaa and the Beetchees
Unemployed Priest
Track Brack
Koonda Holaa and the Beetchees is actually a duo masterminded by Kamilsky, a post-punk, post-industrial, post-everything genius from the Czech Republic who emigrated to the United States several years ago and has settled in Orlando for the time being. Unemployed Priest is only a 5-song EP, but Kamilsky puts more into each song than many groups put into a whole album.
In “Moon Vomit,” the opening track, Kamilsky expresses the feeling that things have gotten so bad down here that “all [his] friends are moving to the moon” to escape the “hands of doom.” Themes of alienation and apocalypse run rampant in the Koonda Holaa catalogue, but they are usually offset by Kamilsky’s subtle but engaging, comic delivery. “Moon Vomit” starts out with a fugue-like pipe organ melody that is soon followed by a ticking time bomb sound, fuzzy electronic pulses, crunchy, industrial-style drums, and Kamilsky’s trademark warbly bass. The song’s structure verges on cut-and-paste with its many creative disruptions. At one point, a wash of spaced-out, short-wave frequencies and a female voice singing a kind of free-form, cosmic scat engulf the song before it returns to its main theme.
“Vulva with Revolver” shines new light on the hidden meaning behind the Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” With its fuzzy programmed riff and pingy, video game pulses, it comes across like an industrial version of Lennon’s “Yer Blues.” “Fat Bitch Must Die” is a masterpiece of programmed and real instrument sounds. It begins with a sadistic soundbite from an obscure B-movie and an arpeggio of electronic tones that gradually rise in volume and pitch to become the sonic equivalent of psychosis. Then Kamilsky’s simple, punk bass riff and hysterical vocals kick in. Bizarre start/stop programming and vocal samples in skip/stuck mode bring about more abrupt but creative shifts in direction. Kamilsky is a master sound collagist. “Unemployed Priest,” the CD’s title cut, relates a tale of a modern day Lenny Bruce character who’s trying to help/heal people but gets rejected at every turn. The EP ends with “I Remain Unimpressed,” a bleak soliloquy on alienation complemented by eerie, Land of the Lost synthesizer sounds. If I had a working band right now and wanted a creative remix/deconstruction done of one my songs, I would forget about whoever’s trendy at the moment and contact Kamilsky. With his unique songwriting and programming skills he creates a strange and mythical world all his own.
Track Brack Management, trackbrack@ao.net
