Of Fungi And Foe

Les Claypool – Of Fungi and Foe
Reviewed by Sadie O., 4/3/09
Rubber bass, cool funky beats, goofy vocals, deep creepiness. The soundtracks for a couple of completely off-kilter movies, with demented and highly amusing lyrics and a panoply of interesting instruments. This is GREAT. Don’t take my word for it – I’m too gobsmacked to talk.
FCCs – singular - on 6 and 9.
I love 1 and 7 most and I’m having both their babies at once.
1. 3:14 *****beyond fantastic! Groovy blatty beat, muttered rhymes (reminds me a LOT of the Residents), marimba and odd poots… it all adds up to the most insanely bitchenass sound I’ve heard in ages.
2. 4:27 ****rubbery bass and swingy beat – just sweet as mess! A little menacing, but in the nicest kinda way.
3. 3:05 ***lopassed but slinky crawl, low, creepy vocals, plucked strings, great lyrics. (“bowmbitty bowm bowm”)
4. 4:57 ****long subdued chord intro, electronic queeps, then the rubberiest bass yet, although all of Claypool’s bass is pretty loose…) Very alarming stuff. Hey – it’s about me! Yay! Actually, I strongly suspect that I should be scared out of my mind… Ends with big drums and squeebles, as a song about me should.
5. 5:50 ***swingy downtempo percussion, vibes and completely grotty bass and strings. Very jaunty, in its own disturbed way. Includes an admirable slide whistly solo.
6. 3:55 FCC: “shit” (once) ***another cool and lopassed percussion with grunty bass, and what passes for Les Claypool’s “normal” vocal style. Quite a cast of odd instruments with not necessarily complementary personalities.
7. 4:34 *****flamenco on crack. Crazy! I can’t do this justice – just listen to it! Pure freaking genius. Oh! Guest vocals by the guy from Gogol Bordello – this explains that much, at least.
8. 4:12 ***creepy low vocals, bitchen swingy loungy (if the lounge were full of ACTUAL lizards…)
9. 3:26 FCC: “shitty wine” ***something electronic in brief distress, then rubbery bass and bitchen funky groove, Residents-esque vocals. Somehow “ethnic” sounding, although I can’t put my finger on the exact ethnicity.
10. 4:08 ***process vocals and bass blatts, BIG drum beat. Note: this is PRECISELY the opposite of what the title claims. I guess it’s kinda cute, actually. No it’s not. MOMMY! I’m scared.
11. 1:52 **random deep and grumbling percussion for half a minute, then a big beat and thrums. Not sure how this will sound on the guy’s car radio who’s heading for Silicon Valley… repeated chant of song title. Frogs.
12. 5:58 ***limping, loping blatts, goofy Claypool vocals, vibes and grunts. Violin solo goes back and forth through your head. I ain’t even drinking, and I can’t stand up! Disturbing story, actually…