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| Track list: 1. Tupperware Stripper 2. Our Fathers 3. Kitchen Table 4. Buffalo 5. Everything In Its Place 6. Bit Part Actor 7. Orgasm Way 8. Ice The Levant 9. Grab Hands 10. 50-0-55 11. Big End Running time: 35 minutes Released: 2007 |
Complete random insert now. Back when I was getting into Microdisney via Cathal Coughlan's solo work, Stump were recommended to me by some algorithm somewhere (I don't recall whether it was a shop or a music site). I fell for the trap, bought the recently released Complete Anthology and then... thought it was odd and ignored it. Was that a good move?
By the by, this is apparently a concatenation of two releases, Quirk Out and Mud on a Colon.
The first sounds are hardly tuneful, and the early voice sounds more like a lead in to a budget 60's sci-fi tune than a pop song... my first musical point of reference is early Pink Floyd. There are some quite funky sounds buried in this track, in and amongst the rubble of the rest, but it is hard to see myself ever choosing to listen to Tupperware Stripper again. Amusing title, though, and the drive of the rhythm is a positive that hints there may be something salvageable in the anthology as a whole. We shall see!
This listen is my New Year's Eve; I've never been a fan of this night of the year and a safe, low key solo pursuit is just the ticket... even if the content I am consuming is not immediately lovable. I like Our Fathers a lot more than the first number though - there is a more definite tune here, whilst preserving some of the interest and quirkiness. The ending is a little but anti-climactic though, and the cutover to the next track is jarring. It jumps into precisely the kind of experimental noise-pop that I was expecting from my brief experiences of Stump when ripping the CDs... and it's not a culture I buy into, though that said I think the vocals that clearly don't fit standard lines and structures provide interest and creativity; it's the music around that which lets it down.
I am more parochial about my music these days for practical reasons. I have too much, I've never liked radio and the ways that I expanded my horizons in the past are less effective now - the lists of new releases on big online stores are dominated by re-releases and multiple different formats of mainstream items which I have no interest in, so I don't get to discover. I'd like to think I would be open to new artists, new sounds etc. - certainly I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the less familiar works I have listened to - but I don't go out of my way to find them. I also just... don't get to gigs anymore. No idea what is on, where, and no-one to go with if I were make for live music retreating out of my life.
I guess it is a question of priorities to some degree, but I do think it's got harder to sort wheat from chaff because there is now so much more... and the latter has always dominated in scale.
Anyhow - meaningless digression aside, if you overlook the questionable lyrics and suppress the suspicion that they're being weird for the sake of being weird, Stump had some talent in there. There is experimentation and there is cacophony, but there are also funky structures, rhythms and good pace. Nothing can save the horrible noise of Bit Part Actor though... it's just awful. It marks the end of the first EP; the latter 5 tracks are the second.
No song I have heard so far this evening has been entirely likable, but equally not everything has been a write off. For all the noise and weirdness in the construction of the sound, I think the most dubious element of the tracks is the lyrical content. The other parts wax and wane in quality, but the lyrics are just sheer nonsense throughout, and "adult" in that particularly juvenile way more often than I am comfortable with. I find it odd that I bring that up here, but for once I actually feel able to track the words to some degree... perhaps the lack of traditional tune structures throws a little more focus on the script?
Experimentation can be a good thing, but by its nature it is hit and miss. On this disc I feel the balance is more miss than hit. For every cool hook and each sweet sound there are two or three unpalatable items - crap words, walls of tuneless sound, incoherent track structure and so on. On the plus side, the tracks have been short and the whole disc is less than 40 minutes so it's not like it's eaten too much of my life. I find that I am keeping about half of it, much more than I thought I would, because enough of the tracks contained little positives to warrant another listen. By rights I should nuke it all, really, but sometimes that spirit of experimentation is welcome, and for when it is, there is Stump.
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