Hang on to your hats and britches and whatever the hell else you have not got battened down against this upcoming shitstorm. It’s a wild ride and a half and even if you survive it without melting down you may never quite be the same again. I had heard of this project quite some time ago and wondered what in the name of all the gods of chaos the mix of contributors could possibly sound like? I knew it was not exactly going to be listener friendly or anything like that but funkoid gonzo I had no idea it was going to sound quite like this!
Backtracking slightly Mutation is a sideswipe project, super-headfuck group, call it whatever the hell you want, comprising essentially of the trio of luminaries that is Ginger Wildheart (clues in the name) Shane Embury (ifilistedallthebandshewasinvolvediniwouldbehereallday) and Jon Poole (you are worthy of laudation if you said The Cardiacs). Yes think about that mix and what the separate styles could sound like when thrown in a blender and (err) mutated, then think again. This is before we have got to some special guests who appear too.
Play is pressed and ‘Bracken’ springs up and down, the bouncy pogo sounds a bit like a crap old Brit game-show theme Supermatch Game. We have elements of grind, noise and general madness including a deranged choral part bursting out the massive amount of layered sound. Vocals at the front are grunted out, I have no idea what they are going on about but ‘jump’ seems to be shouted a lot, I can assure you the music does not resemble Van Halen in the slightest though. Everything swirls and warps around, masked all over the place and not just backwards but sidewise too and all over the shop, there is so much going on. Calmer clean harmonic vocals follow on ‘Utopia Syndrome’ there’s almost a normal song here, well until things explode in a “not so happy” way and the sonic excesses of sound build up and drop into sound effects like an invasion of space hoppers! Yes it’s all complete and utter unhinged eccentricity and of course it’s bloody bonkers British with it which says a lot for the state of our nation.
I love the bits where Poole is completely unleashed and if you are a Cardiacs fan you will notice them straight away and have a big shit eating grin on your face, ‘White Leg’ for example has you thinking it is going to burst into ‘On Land And In The Sea’ and to be fair comes close! There are a couple of special guests one of which takes the complete Englishness out of the collective being Merzbow; if you can name the parts he contributes to out of this sprawling mass of noise you are a cleverer person than me. One other who is instantly recognisable and whose drawled out vocals should need no intro to though is that dour bastard from the North, Mark E Smith. As his vocals lurch in and drunkenly snarl with contempt on ‘Mutations’ even through a fog of strange electronic effects it’s like going back a few decades and dropping a needle on an old Fall 7”.
Listening to this album over and over again is not going to help it all sink in, no matter how many plays you sit through it is always going to sound batshit crazy, it’s probably just going to screw your head up all the more. Then again I’m sure this was never really meant to make any sort of structured sense and that just adds to the enjoyment for any enthusiasts who can listen to it without running headlong screaming like a herd of buffalo is chasing them (funnily enough just what the drumming sounds like at times). ‘Son Of White Leg’ almost brings a tear to my eye as it is the most Cardiacs moment on the album and reminds me how much I miss them. Having said that I bet there are a few of their hardiest fans who couldn’t take Mutation in all their manic glory. As Mark E snarls over ‘Relentless Confliction’ like a meth sodden hobo I am taken back to my formative musical years and wonder if there was any way I could have conceivably envisioned this? No has to be the only truthful answer I can give!
This is one of those rare albums that really does not come around that often. The last thing remotely as nuts as this I can remember was hearing Stagnant Waters but even that was not quite up there on the levels that this hits. I would normally say you should approach this with extreme caution but I’m not going to, I’m just going to say you should listen to it.
Why?
Good question.
Because fuck you, that’s why!
(8/10 Pete Woods)
01/11/2013 at 4:18 pm
Sweet review. I’ll definitely try and nail down a copy.
13/11/2013 at 10:23 pm
An incredible album in every sense but Jon Poole steals the show.
On ‘Sun of White Leg’, you could ‘almost’ believe that Cardiacs have gatecrashed the entire party….a moment as near them as you’ll hear….Poole, fucking legend.