Mega-Mousse
Musical Monogram
TZME Productions
Ugly and misleading album cover, ugly and misleading first track, good interesting album. This is what happens when smart people make good music and then try a little too hard to gussy it up.
Mega-Mousse are six people I’ve never heard of playing music no one’s ever heard of: a mix between math-rock, death metal, and klezmer. Three of them play saxophone, and all of them are skilled as hell at what they do, whatever it is they do.
If you find this record, which you should, what you need to do is start it with track number two, “Retrac Evets.” This slab of slow-to-fast funk is guaranteed to make you fall in love with the idea of Mega-Mousse – it turns into a hot froelich dance that every hip kid should have at his/her bar/bat mitzvah, then fades into ambient big band, then back to funk. It would have been a great way to start the record, instead of the we-wish-we-were-Frank-Zappa-being-channeled-by-Dianogah opener, “Rubber Cowboy,” with its growly, grumbly vocals that mean nothing and sound worse.
For the rest of the disc, over and over, Mega-Mousse proves how revolutionary they might just be; check the wild “Hello” (with lyrics that actually work), the wilder 11-minute “Juan’s Grublington” (Surrender, Tortoise! We have kicked your asses!), and the wildest track here or anywhere in the universe, the rockabilly/NewOrleansFuneral/Metallica/Klezmatics festival called “Lazor 2000.” Hell, after hearing the rest of it, you might even go back and revisit “Rubber Cowboy,” which makes a lot more sense now.
Completely out of left field, I think I love this record. I didn’t want to – they made me do it. I hate when bands do that.
Mega-Mousse: http://www.mega-mousse.com
