How's my singing? (Your mileage may vary.)

[imomus]

Being a bit of a fan of ambivalence -- that Janus-like state in which our reactions face in two directions at the same time, which means it has something in common with collaboration -- I rather enjoy nuanced reviews of my work. Outright pan or praise doesn't feel right, fair or accurate, somehow. All-good or all-bad is bound to be a lie.

So I enjoyed the mixed Joemus review in Brooklyn mag Prefix, which begins: "Nick Currie, who records as Momus, has spent much of his career treading some uncleansed middle ground between the irksome and the inspired". This review, which awards the record seven out of ten, leans to the "inspired" side but doesn't lose sight of failings, calling me on naff techniques and half-finished songs.



The review sees a natural pop singer with a "lopsided canon" thwarted by conceptual baggage and production tricks, but believes that "as soon as we’ve hit rock bottom we’re pulled up by our bootstraps". Almost every sentence has this ambivalent structure, as if to say "Although this record is pretty terrible, it's actually pretty good in the end". Of the work with Joe, for instance: "Occasionally the collaboration between these two disparate workers doesn’t gel... but it’s gratifying to hear how often they hit paydirt". Like The Vaudevillian in the final track, I'm "leaving the audience not knowing whether to applaud or call the emergency services".

Since many of you now have your copies of Joemus, I thought it might be time to issue a "how's my driving?" heads-up and a tollfree number. So how are you getting on with this album? Any juicy ambivalence to share? Tracks you skip, tracks you love, tracks on repeat? Are we talking curate's egg or Fabergé? Stinker or swimmer? Is Joemus the fourth worst of the twenty Momus albums, or the third best? A mixed bag or a nickelbag of funk? Jammus maximus or Janusbait? The lines are open.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

It's up there.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

Widow Twanky and Thatness & Thereness are both tracks I absolutely love.

a lot of the vocals you've chosen to subtly distort and digitize in an attempt to add a sense of 'wrongness' as you'd put it, and it reminded me of quite advanced singing synthesis technology Yahama has recently released called Vocaloid (http://www.vocaloid.com/).

Voice sysnthethis is reaching that 'uncanny valley' stage, but it's not quite there, and your album evokes a lot of that.

The Japanese artist Gackt joined up with Yahama to create a Gackt vocal synthesis product that consumers can buy to create their own homemade Gackt tracks. Both of these tracks use Gackt's vocal synthesis software:



A lot of what I heard of your album sounds like what I'd expect people to make if they could buy 'Momus in a box' vocaloid software from Yamaha.

[(Anonymous)]

nice avoidance of the question there!

[qscrisp.livejournal.com]

Still looking forward to it. Have been a bit out of the Momus loop. I didn't even listen to what I skimmingly assumed were samples therefrom, because I thought this time I'd like there to be as much surprise as possible.

[bennycornelius.livejournal.com]

My copy hasn't arrived yet. I'm attending a seminar being held by the Bristol Momus Society (we need a catchier title!) at which the two of us (alright it's early days, but the other one of us is a Star Forever) are going to listen to the record and chat after each track. I've rather ruined things by sneaking listens to Proctor, Jahwise (both pretty good) etc. I'm hoping to be pleasantly wrongfooted, like I've been so many times in the past ... perhaps most noticeably by Otto Spooky.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"Pleasantly wrongfooted" contains just the sort of ambivalence I was fishing for, thank you!

Good luck with the society and say hi to Maf!

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Is that toilet paper?

I haven't bought it yet, but I'll have a look in town today.

[(Anonymous)]

Joemus is pretty brilliant because most of it is so infatuating.
I'll sing 'Widow Twanky' in the shower (complete with falsettoised, very bad Scottish accent: 'Un' called yeh stupid cuuuuuowww')
I'll usually listen to the more upbeat tracks while walking to work, and play the more trad tracks while milling around the house, cleaning and so forth. The only track I really skip with any consistently is 'Dracula' because it doesn't really fit into either category. It's a great premise for a song rather than a great song. I think the female vocals can be a bit difficult to understand, so a more casual listener might be a little put off by the delivery. But it's only a minor criticism. I like it. I do regularly listen to the album as a cohesive piece anyway and if I am doing so, I don't skip tracks. There's nothing totally totally awful there at all, whereas thinking about it, on every other newly released studio album I've bought this year (five, including yours) I have pressed the skip button on at least one track.
When walking to work, I'll favour the more upbeat tracks (Mr Proctor, Ichabod Crane, Jahwise Hammer)

James

The trouble with small and obcure

[(Anonymous)]

Hhmmmmm don't think so. I haven't seen any album download links anywhere yet. No torrents, what gives. It's not like you buy albums, why should we?

[drywbach.livejournal.com]

I still don't have, and even when I do, it'll take a good while for me to figure out how I feel about everything. It usually does. By then you'll probably be well into a new project, so...

It took me a long time to warm to Mr Proctor (Hieronymus?) -- there's a lot going on, and it felt disorienting for the first few listens, if that makes any sense -- and such a short time to love eerie, dreamlike Widow Twanky that I found myself wondering why there aren't more songs about pantomime dames in the world. I haven't figured out how I feel about Jahwise Hammer yet. The track I'm most looking forward to hearing (because of the lyric) is The Vaudevillian.

So far, Widow Twanky and Dracula are my favourite tracks, and Dracula may have a slight edge. I don't have the vocabulary to describe what's happening musically in those tracks that's so appealing to me, but in Dracula, for example, I enjoy the way the music heightens the tension between the characters. Lyrically, I've been enjoying it for the unfashionably unsexy vampire and the assertive would-be "victim". It feels like a humorous, anti-erotic inversion of "death and the maiden" type songs (or whatever you'd call them -- "Don't Fear the Reaper", "Joan of Arc", the Leonard Cohen one, I mean). It still ends with a shiver, though, before going off into "pa-pa-pa".

If anything, I'd have liked to hear more of your voice unaltered on the original tracks.

By the way, I can see how it may be easier to enjoy a nuanced but largely positive review; the compliments are more pleasant for the fact that they're considered -- but wouldn't a similar negative one be worse than mindless panning? I.e. they've actually given it some thought and they still hate it?

Indescretion

[(Anonymous)]

My copy is taking an age to arrive from Cherry Red, I was looking to see if they sold a download but alas it appears not. Have purposefully avoided samples etc as I want to enjoy and/or endure Joemus as a whole in one sitting.

yours indescreetly and slightly less gayly

Maf

ps. We have two and half members of the Brighton Momus Appreciation Society

Re: Indescretion

[(Anonymous)]

Howdy all.

My copy is similarly late arriving from Cherry Red, grr, but as my pal bennycornelius has already suggested it will given a suitably respectful listening by we two when it does, and on a brand spanking new hi-fi to boot, which I need to cover in cling film on account of Ben's fetishisation of quality electronics.

And no gunning down mid song, since Maf will be Brighton way.

Miles

[(Anonymous)]

Not being in possession of a copy of Joemus, but having heard certain songs online, i think i am most drawn to the Cooper of Fife, having myself gone to school in Cupar, Fife.
Also, Mr Proctor is unfeasibly catchy, but nigh-on impossible to sing in the shower/while cycling/at all.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Make a video in which you're dancing. I want my money's worth!

[pixelmist.livejournal.com]

I was listening to Joemus very softly in my office yesterday. Students were coming in and out for conferences. Two students asked me to turn it off, because it distracted them from their papers (they would probably have said this about Percy Faith Orchestra, as well); one student asked me to turn it up, because she really liked "The Next Time"; and another student asked me what that guy was saying on "Ichabod Crane" besides "ICHABOD CRAANE!"

Of course the record's good. Sometimes, as with the "O Trilogy," the distortion and bitcrushingis more interesting in theory than practice. It's like a truly deconstructive text: as a Form, compelling, as an actual text, unreadable.

I think I wrote this in a review of Ocky Milk, which was (melodically, at least) a much stronger album: vocals, vocals, vocals. I enjoy the distorted/AutoTune'd bits: mostly they work with the grain of the song, not against it. However, "Ichabod Crane," "Strewf!", and (especially) "Dracula" suffer from the distortion. This is especially tragic with "Dracula," as it had the potential to be a very funny, very beautifully-arranged pop-hörspiel.

I downloaded Ocky Milk from eMusic, and expected a little bit of muddiness in the files. Not wanting to experience the same thing, I dragged myself to Amoeba and bought one of their two copies of Joemus. Still relatively muddy. The weird thing is, Oskar and Otto don't seem to me to have this problem. Why is that?

[(Anonymous)]

in response to: The weird thing is, Oskar and Otto don't seem to me to have this problem. Why is that?

Risking the obvious chance of sounding completely full of myself (oh well, don't care)...I would say the reason with little doubt is, well, me. I spent a lot of time and thought into working out the kinks in the finished sound on many varied speakers and equipment to make it sound as good as I possibly could no matter what people would listen to it on, format included. OCD has also led me to building a large amount of exotic electronics from scratch as well no doubt.
-John Flesh

[thomascott.livejournal.com]

I can understand your desire to get feedback on Joemus but it would seem that most of your regular readers/listeners haven't got around to purchasing a copy yet.
I hope you do a similar post to this in a month or so as I'm sure the response volume will be of more value than these early impressions.
For what it's worth I certainly very much like what I've heard but it will probably be another week before I have my copy and I like to live with a cd for a few days before I formulate an opinion on it.

[(Anonymous)]

Waiting on my copy. I will give you my impressions as soon as it has sunk in. I love "Thatness and Thereness" so that will be the one to beat.

Richard

[(Anonymous)]

Second ever comment from a long time reader: I don't care for "The Next Time" -- I'm unable to hear how that song stands apart as an exceptional standard, and am as well unable to tell anything fresh about it (sounds like Cornelius's version of "Sleep Warm," but not as pleasing, and autotune's novelty has more than warn off by now for me).

But. That's out of the way. I think the rest is really great. Esp. the first two songs, and then "The Cooper o' Fife" and "Strewf!" I have to give the image/comparison trick to one track: "Widow Twanky" is like a Prefab Sprout acid bath [corrosive acid, not hallucinogenic]. Love the pitch trick on the backing vocals of "Birocracy." (Ever heard Godley & Creme's "I Pity Inanimate Objects"?)

Actually, my only other critical comment right now is that I think "Dracula" gets derailed before it finishes. It should have maintained that drowsy dreaminess.

Yes yes, though, Joemus will be getting lots of play, and its overall exceptional nature will also inspire some more relistens to a batch of recent Momus albums, for some refreshing. I'll also go listen to Germlin now.

-Spencer

[joji-poji.livejournal.com]

my copy is in the post. really looking forward to it! i briefly met joe (who was very nice) when i went to his ben butler gig with my friend ben (max tundra).
i also bought the new Yximalloo cd when i was in new york - i really enjoyed your liner notes.
j

[(Anonymous)]

hi momus i havent got the joemus album yet but will be buying it on wed when my pays in, along with the customary bottle of red wine.(have done this with all your albums since dont stop the night)
having heard all the ones youve posted i think it will be a most enjoyable sonic journey.admittedly it took me a while to "digest" oskar
tennis champion but now regard it very highly.
my personal top 7.
1/ping pong
2/20 vodka jellys
3/osakar
4/tender pervert
5/otto spooky
6/occy milk
7/poison boyfriend
ps.the gig you did in sereo glasgow was simply amazing although the sunday mail slagged it rotten....why? ps whats your fav momus album

[(Anonymous)]

First best and favorite, actually. Second only to OSKAR. An apotheosis and sea change both, I'd say.

One does tend to skip "The Mouth Organ," and, in fact, "Dracula," but only now, after repeated listens.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, I feel rather meh about The Mouth Organ myself.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't gotten mine yet, I can't wait, but I might have to wait until Christmas. I'm a cheap college student.

But I just wanted to say that I hope that the few people knocking the distortion on Dracula or the autotune on other tracks isn't discouraging, because it's one of the main things I love about your choice in quality on this record and in general. I've been so curious how you achieved that distorted effect on Dracula (I can't get enough of manipulated vocal tracks). How'd you do it?
Do tell, do tell! :)

sunday mail,u did say you liked a strong opinion

[(Anonymous)]

MOMUS *****

Stereo, Glasgow, July 27

The eccentric Scot's set was like a Monty Python sketch without the humour. His behaviour was farcical and musically he was a shambles.

The only highlights were between songs when he was not playing his awful music or singing along to a tinny, keyboard-driven backing tape.

He has a degree of stage presence due to his distinctive eye-patch, straggly hair and brown apron. The uniquely limp choreography also made the show a little more bearable But his antics and tracks such as King Solomon's Song And Mine clearly pleased the few dozen fans who turned up as they offered hearty applause after each song. Mike Larkin (from iain)

[(Anonymous)]

I may grow into this album, but for the moment it sounds too busy and bitty to me. I don't think you've got the balance right between convention and experimentation. I'd love to see simpler, more stripped down versions of some of these songs. Not for any reasons of "authenticity", just because I think they'd actually do more of what you want them to do that way. For example, Widow Twanky makes a great weirdy loungy song but the manipulated voice ruins it for me. There's enough ambiguity and fucked-upness in the lyrics and the off-kilter backing track without the voice being all fucked up as well, it's too much, too distancing, makes it too hard to connect with the song. I think the thing with "disorienteering" is not to go overboard with it, because then it starts to lack impact, and ironically becomes less "disorienteering". It's counterintuitive perhaps, but you need the convention in order to sound unconventional. And you need to just surreptitiously slip in the weirdness for it to have an effect, rather than bang the listener over the head with it.

Of course, I may change my mind about all this tomorrow!

[(Anonymous)]

The thing with digital manipulation is that you can do everything and you can do nothing. You end up with something that, no matter how it sounds, just sounds primarily like "digital manipulation". It's a bit like CGI. Yeah, you can conjure up anything with CGI, but after a while whatever you do just looks like CGI. I wonder whether the most experimental thing to do now is go back to analogue sound, maybe experimenting with organic sounds like Scott Walker on The Drift, for instance.

[(Anonymous)]

Chinese Democracy has taken over my stereo. Sorry.

[(Anonymous)]

All the Joe Howe-ish bits sound great, all the Momus bits sound tired. Admit it, Momus, you use all that autotune and vodocoder stuff because your unvarnished voice sounds so AWFUL

[(Anonymous)]

I hate to say it, but much Momus "criticism" quite often reminds me of that Stoppard line, "audiences know what to expect, and that is all that they are prepared to believe in." I.e., so much resentment for not adhering to the pretty lilting witty synth-pop tender pervert archetype ... I'm more than happy to see Momus continue this evolution into abstraction (albeit damn catchy abstraction!) ... texture outpacing text, unpop outpacing pop, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Nick, I'll try to adhere to a Janus-like thought structure and short-circuiting sentence structure. Having had your album now for three weeks and listened to it, or parts thereof, each day, or nearly each day, I feel qualified to comment. The first track I always skip because it's just too hyper as a starter offer. When playing the album for a listener new to your work, I am especially careful to begin with Widow Twonky, the second track, which I find to be universally loved. That said, the one time I accidentally did not skip the first track, it was the only track praised by its new Momus listener in my proximity. Ditto with the third track: too hyper, skip. The problem with the fourth track is that it is one I've already listened to a million times since first downloading it last year. It was then my favorite song, as you know, and I found I had to listen to it chronically in order to claw my way out from under its spell. Now that I am free, I sometimes allow Joemus to pass through Thatness and Thereness unchecked, variously out of nostalgia and in order to ponder other people's inevitable enjoyment as they listen to the song for the less-than-millionth time. Now I always welcome Morning When the Lepers Rise, what a great arrangement, with unassumingly warm sounds. Even the obnoxious slapdash bass interlude is an understandable means of enhancing our appreciation for what it returns us to. The next song, Next Time, is golden. Nice job on the distant, slightly downward glissed synth notes. We get to the real heart of the album with Cooper O' Fife. The almost gurgling, waking yawn sound at the beginning is a well-chosen anticipation of what follows. Another great instance of anticipation occurs slightly later in the song, with those three tiny synth notes heralding arrival of the second verse. Then comes what always sounds to my ears like Momus taking on King's Lead Hat. I experience this as a parenthetical conversation that I could either tolerate or skip ahead from. The next song I love, 'What is it to yar...' I always listen all the way through, and then if possible skip Dracula because it seems to belong the second side if only CDs could have second sides. The song after Dracula I also try to skip, though with less eagerness because it doesn't really bother me, it just seems emotionally irrelevant. The song after the song after Dracula I like quite a bit, Who Killed the Eskimos. This gentle number mentions a noble savage, a willow tree, polyester seams. Nice wind orchestration, almost reminding the listener of Wayne Shorter. This and the next two songs strike me as pleasant fodder. However, it is a pleasant fodderness that accidentally attains impressive heights. The line 'the day they invented the car,' on the third of these three songs, accompanied by car-inventing sounds, makes this one a great choice of closer for the three-song pleasantly heliotropic fodder interlude. The next song, The Man You'll Never Be, which begins spookily, frightens me. Though it is a great song, I sometimes skip it because, though brilliant, it seems a trifle mean-spirited. The last song is ethereal, evocative, an extension of the aforementioned three songs and a very suitable closer outer. D

JoeMus

[(Anonymous)]

update for Miles Franklin OBE

...stumbled home after a brutal week at work to find the latest Momus LP on my doormat..

will throw my quick capsule review this way later this eve..I feel a frisson in my slippers

maf

one of your best

[milobusbecq.livejournal.com]

While I can't yet evaluate where Joemus belongs in the canon, I can say that "Widow Twanky" is one of the most beautiful and subtle songs of your entire career. And to be honest, all the garbage about conceptual baggage is just that: garbage. One of things that distinguishes your music from both experimenters and traditionalists is that its careful attention to texture and timbre is neither thoughtless or coyly self-conscious. It's hard to imagine the songs existing apart from their arrangements in some platonic, no-nonsense rockist way. "Widow Twanky" is an ideal example of this. While traditionalist could be satisfied that the song would be lovely sung accompanied by just a guitar (which I have done, and it is just dandy), and while the experimentalist could focus upon the detourning of normal conventions, the song manages to make both of these attitudes irrelevant. The song is strange and so is the arrangement--why should I be forced to think of one as the thing itself and the other as an accident? (I am aghast however that you were actually able to improve on "Nervous Hearbeat," which is also a masterpiece.) The distinction between some inauthentic conceptualism and honest songcraft should not have been able to stand after your last several records, . In any case, you are an inspiration. (And "Goodiepal" might be my favorite now.)

Adam's First Click Opera Post

[(Anonymous)]

I opened my Joemus CD yesterday afternoon and have played it five times since. It's easily the best album I've heard this year, though there's still time for Ariel Pink to come out with something. Widow Twanky and Dracula are currently my two favorite songs, but there's really not a bummer in the bunch. I think Birocracy is a great opener. I'm not Christian, nor do I like Christmas music, but Birocracy is what I'd want Christmas to sound like if I were into that sort of thing. I'd forgotten about that "big bassoon/on the moon" lyric... having read it in an earlier post, it now feels like a Dr. Seuss line I'd read as a kid. I like "glitter the culture", too. Widow Twanky... wow... your voice here is to die for... I can't listen to this song w/o seeing the video in my head, but that's a good thing. The break in Mr Proctor, when things slow down and your voice gets all deep and fucked up, is probably the moment I most look forward to on Joemus. Let's see, Thatness and Thereness. Oddly, though I liked the video, the song didn't do anything for me when I heard it with the visual, and yet now that it's separate, I adore it. Jahwise Hammer... can't listen to this song w/o attempting to emulate the various walking styles in Rockers... and looking like a happy fool doing so. The Next Time is probably the only song that I feel could be made a bit better; it needs a little something more to counter its straight-up cover-of-a-standard feel. Maybe something musically going on in the distant background. I dunno, like maybe the laughs from Beowulf should crop up again, but so that you can barely make them out. Something that doesn't undermine the sentimental nature of the song, but that puts you a little on edge. Love The Cooper O'Fife (might be my wife's favorite song after Widow Twanky); brings back memories of Folktronic, too. And Ichabod Crane is fun to scream along to. I don't care what others say, I want more manipulation of your vocals. I love how you sound on Strewf! This brings us to Dracula, at which point I always have to stop what I'm doing and let myself be overtaken by the strange emotions that well up inside me. Kyoka's voice is beautiful and sad; I also love that I still can't make out some of the words; much spookier that way. Ever since Guy Maddin's Dracula, I've really been into odd takes on the Dracula story. I agree with the person who said that it's a little jarring when the song morphs into its second phase, but since I like it, I just pretend it's the next song and all is well. Goodiepal's alright, but after Dracula anything's going to sound a bit ho hum to me. Things get going again with Fade to White; here again, your vocals are thrilling. I always loved The Mouth Organ on the Milky album, so it's nice to give it another arrangement here. The Man You'll Never Be took a couple listens to click, but now I love love love, but not as much as The Vaudevillian. What I've come to realize about your voice is that, though I love the "natural" "standard" Nick voice that populates the majority of your songs on other albums (certainly all the early ones), I think it's less the texture of your voice and more the way you perform it. Therefore, when you mess with it and create these new voices that, frankly, have a more interesting texture than the Nick voice I've come to know and love since 1998, the vocal performances are that much more riveting. Sempreverde and Bantam Boys were, for example, my favorite songs off Otto Spooky. Anyway, hats off to another stellar Momus album. And hats off to Joe! He really gives your music some whoomp; this is the first Momus album that I want to turn up real loud. So many great sounds floating around every song. One final note: what I admire is that no matter where you take your music, you never fall into the trap of making purely 'difficult' music; you've entered the pantheon of artists who play around with all sorts of eccentric, strange, forward-thinking musical ideas, yet always manage to create songs that sound like 22nd century pop to me... complex candy. It's easy to mess around and create weird new forms that confront and give your brain analytical pause; much more challenging and exciting to present these new forms as emotional songs that creep into your heart.

Adam of St. Louis

Re: Adam's First Click Opera Post

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Wow, these reviews are great to read sitting on the floor in Vienna airport when your Berlin flight has been delayed two hours! The last few particularly. Thank you! I now feel that if my plane crashes I won't die without having achieved something. But I hope it won't, obviously.