Sound Of Silence

So bad it’s good. But still bad

I know psyreviews disses a lot of releases, and this is one of the reasons why you love psyreviews. But seriously, no matter how ordinary or predictable or re-trodden an album might be, it will never be as bad as this.

And no matter how boring or safe-playing a label might be, it will never be as bad as Mushy Records. The taste-bypass label who brought us Ellis Vanghoul (who sent us a bilious, if incomprehensible, email after that review) and Monkey Mission is back with this utterly turgid release.

According to the press blurb, and this is a direct quote, I promise you: “When ethnic vibes collides [sic] with state of the art music machinery and Indian sitar clashes rocking vocal roars, something erupts.” One assumes they mean vomit.

This music is just terrible, awful. And yet there’s a sort of magnetism to it, I’ve been relishing listening to it in much the same way as one relishes squeezing a spot, or how one watches motor racing just to wait for the crashes.

I’ve been trying for a while to pull out one track to highlight to you just how bad this is – Loose Control is a strong contender, but the opening track probably wins – an Israeli man asking if you want to see him naked at the start of an album isn’t quite the most psychedelic thing I’ve ever heard. (This page plays it from the beginning).

For the rest of it, it’s trance-lite with competent playing, preset production, and moments that one expects sends clueless ravergirls weak at the knees.

Alright, let’s get this into perspective. It’s not as rocky as Infected Mushroom, it’s not as cheesily over the top as Hypersonic, and it’s not pure crap in a Dali sense. Basically, this is bad. But it does – and I mean this – fall into that category of “so bad, it’s good.”

This is one I’ll be hanging onto so I can play it to my grandchildren; it’s one of those record-collecting oddities that has otherwise negligible merit.