From Zenon M. Feszczak Sent Sat, Jan 30th 1999, 21:33
From Zenon M. Feszczak Sent Sat, Jan 30th 1999, 21:33
Hooverphonic / Blue Wonder Power Milk ------------------------------------- 1998 Sony (Belgium) ABBA goes dada: like unregistered shareware, like something GUI and delicious, dissolves and addicts. What's in a name? After the infamous dance Hoover sound? When I first heard this record, nearly fell off the chair upon which I stood. Then brought me to tears, not only as so moving, but because I thought I had thought of it first. There you have it in the age of instant information, the ZeitGeist in the Machine: whoever releases (an album, that is) first, wins. Drifty dream pop cross-multiplies genres like the mutant edenic offspring of a total black-out on Noah's ark. That is to say, a platypus. "Look left, look up, look down, look right - look out!" Tripping beats, skittery synths, oceanic orchestration, drifty grooves, and - what's this then? - melodies! Fool for strings am I, biases my magnetic head. "Lung", the weakest number, takes a SaturdayNightFever guitar line and big beat drums and loses interest. The rest is quite cake. "Battersea" brings back memories of flying pigs and the industrial revolution. "Montepulciano" goes 60s-lounge-acid-country. Timothy Leary's dead? Beaumont Hannant meets Simon and Garfunkel. Live drum post-Jungian junglian hop drums a la Red Snapper. Geike demands her right to free association, with whispered seductress lyrics that confuse and bemuse. "Magenta" is the cinema climax, just hide those tears before the lights come up. Esoterically, Zenon M. Feszczak City Procrastinator