Tell me something about Otto Spooky

[imomus]

Today I'd like anyone who's got a copy of my new album Otto Spooky to tell me something about it... and you.



How does this long-playing Momus record fit into your listening routine? What records do you play before and after it? Have you bought anything since, and is Herr Spooky throwing shade or overshadowed? Were you particularly struck by certain lines? Do Otto's musical textures please you? What's great and what grates? Where does Otto stand in your personal canon of Momus records (assuming you have some other ones)? What do you think of John Talaga's intermezzi? Have you fallen asleep to this music, made love to it, got lost in it, jogged with it, played it in your car while driving through a National Park? Did you cover your children's ears when the song about the fascist boyscout came on? (Assuming you have children, that is.) Did your dog chew James Goggin's digipak (if so, print the JPEG above on stiff card and spray it with some foul-smelling fixative). Do any of the songs play in your head even when the record isn't on? When you're at the supermarket, do you ever look around to see if Robin Hood is there "in a wheelchair buying food", kidney dialysis colostomy bag by his side? Are you a top-scoring, panda-topping Lute Score wizard?

Comments

[dermfitz.livejournal.com]

Ah, kind of like a read-only focus group! I like it. I don't have the CD yet. Hope this helps.

[xyzedd.livejournal.com]

I bow, curtsy, genuflect, get down on my knees, prostrate myself, then PRAY to Otto. Oskar is filled with wrath.

Seriously, I hope to give you a fuller report later....

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Click Opera is albumware. It's free, but once a year you have to buy and crit an album.

[silenceinspades.livejournal.com]

i have a slight case of tinnitus causing me to have a high pitched ring in my ears. some times i think i hear things, mostly my cell phone. i swear that the other night it was playing lady fancy knickers. in my head. in my inner ear. though i like the song, it was starting to drive me insane.
the album's great though. my girlfriend likes folktronic better, but she also likes broadway original cast records.

[(Anonymous)]

tryin' ta make us feel guilty or somethun?

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry to stray off-topic so early in the day, but any immediate thoughts or observations about Hunter S Thompson?

Rob

[(Anonymous)]

I'm really glad you made this post! Because I'm interested to hear how successful you think the album is.

As for me, I really like it. The only problem I have with it is that it has some coherency problems. There's a definite contrast between songs 1-9 and 10-15. At first I didn't like the 'intermezzi'--I thought they made the album much too disjointed--but now that I know them better, I do. (Let it be known that 'Oskar Tennis Champion' is my favorite Momus album.) One thing the intermezzi do is force you to listen to the album in the order it is presented. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

It also took me a while to warm to the production. OTC sounded very crisp and well-produced. This one seems to have a lot more going on in each track, so the low-end feels a bit muddy or cluttered at times. But that means that it holds up well to repeated listens--there's a lot here to discover. And I still haven't dissected the lyrics (I'm much more interested in sounds).

I very much like the direction you have been going in these past few years. Your music has gotten more experimental, exotic, and interesting. And, overall, it remains accessible. The people who continually complain that they want the "classic" Momus don't understand what it means to be a musician.

The only track that sounds unsuccessful to mine two ears is "Mr Ulysses." It's not as dense as the other tracks, and, honestly, I think it slows the album down too much, especially since it's followed by "Water Song." My favorite track is probably "Lady Fancy Knickers." And I like the Eastern sound of "Corkscrew King" and "Klaxon" (I was particularly struck by the latter...though I think it hasn't quite held up so well). And let it be known that I really like "Cockle Pickers"! I feel like I'm playing Monkey Island.

The first time I heard "Klaxon" I expected to hear some fretless bass pop in. I think it would fit in wonderfully. In fact, I think I might rip your album to my computer and try adding fretless bass to some of the tracks for fun. Have you ever considered using steel drums for any of your pirate-y tracks? An underrated instrument, indeed!

Otto Spooky is my most-listened-to album of the year thus far, followed closely by Jeans Team - 'Music von Oben'. They're a newish electronic German band that I think you'd really like, Momus. They even have a track called "Boat Music."

Patrick

[(Anonymous)]

And if that's your hand on the cover, have you considered hand modeling?

Patrick

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

It's currently languishing on my amazon.co.uk wishlist, awaiting my next paycheque. I'll keep you posted. (If it's anything like your blog, it should be quite interesting.)

comment

[(Anonymous)]

haven't heard otto yet momus. but i'm still very much in love with summerisle. very good listen on a bike ride, falling asleep to, sharing a dinner with. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scrobble

[jip.livejournal.com]

http://www.audioscrobbler.com/music/Momus
http://www.last.fm/fans/Momus

[armistice-day.livejournal.com]

another next-payday wishlister, here - but when i do buy, it'll be a two copy purchase, as i owe my friend foxysquid for pimping you (musically, of course) to me in the first place!
that said, i love the cover art and am itrigued by the track titles and the bits i have heard. :3

[cosmic-disciple.livejournal.com]

don't have the album, but the cover was mimiced in a local (Athens, Georgia) Golden Pantry billboard, the same hand is reaching out from the black bottom for a Coke spilling out of a 12-can fridge pack.

[axolotl-eyes.livejournal.com]

My order for Otto was placed the moment it became available. I am quite impressed with the intermezzi that pull one out of one song and then spin around until the listener is plonked face-first into the next. I don't know if it is a complaint or not--I have been listening to most all of these songs since they were posted here, this album was a bit of a disappointment in that I felt I had mostly owned it before. I have fond memories of listening to 'life of the fields' while sitting and watching the wind run through the nearly-ripe barley in rural Kumamoto last May, 'Sempreverde' while watching crass Japanese youth and more crass foreign tourists visit Nara Koen in June or 'Lady Fancy Knickers' as I went to many farewell enkais in July and August. All that the album offered me above and beyond what I already had was the flow between the songs (now often ripped apart due to the randomizer on my discman) and two as yet unheard songs I am slowly warming to--'jesus in furs' being particularly apropos for my return to the violent and Jesus-y USA.

I want to listen to it as I blaze around town on my bicycle, but hipsters with fast guitars help to power the ride a bit more than the soothing notes of 'water song' or 'Cockle Pickers.' As you would expect, this album is fantastic for being a digital creature, playing in the background as one clicks away for hours on the internet.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm looking forward to hearing it. Have there been any press reviews of it yet?

H.

[runstaverun.livejournal.com]

I got your record at Kims in New York City, they have a wide selection of your CDs. I like it, it is currently in my computer at work, where I was the one to type the song name information into whatever cd information database Windows Media Player uses. I have listened to it in my car and at work. Since I bought Otto Spooky I saw Freezepop and bought their most recent CD from them (also with a song in French on it). I only listened to the Freezepop CD once before my car window was broken and my CD player (with the CD inside) was removed... Luckily my girlfriend also bought the same CD from them...

favorite songs: Lady Fancy Knickers, Lute Score, Cockle Pickers
least favorite songs: your fat friend, the water song

Some songs are mixtape bound, and will probably sit next to Neutral Milk Hotel, Venetian Snares, and the Streets.

Your new record is very nice.

[backmasked.livejournal.com]

my local down-home alabama indie record store is dragging ass on getting it to me.

if you were on Cuneform, you can bet they'd have got it to me on time...

[(Anonymous)]

i thought you "pulled a thompson" a few days ago?

karl landers isn't even corporeal.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Wish me good news on the job interview I did last week - I'll spring for the CD if I get the job!

[serenchwilen.livejournal.com]

Otto Spooky is one of albums I'm most anxious to hear for this year, number two after the return of Phil Judd with Novelty Act (http://www.philjudd.com//) which hopefully will be out next month.

You may have gone over this already, but what would be the easiest way for someone in the U.S. to get a copy of Otto Spooky? My usual sources for imports and obscurities are making no mention of it, Virgin in Orlando had no listing for it, and amazon.com says it's not out here until April. I'm afraid all the local record stores by me are pretty useless. Is there any online store you recommend? I am eager to listen and give you feedback.

Evangelism.

[peripherus-max.livejournal.com]

I uploaded the disc to iPod a couple of weeks ago just before I stepped on a plane to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to install a wall-sized video projection in a university gallery. The piece was a 19-minute loop: Casey Spooner singing on bended knee to my husband and I in a Manhattan hotel suite displayed in front of an audience of middle American Catholics. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my favorite track was "The Artist Overwhelmed." :)

You never disappoint Nick. Otto Spooky is gospel music for all airports, seaports, train stations... and it almost demands to be listened to with headphones in any situation where people watching is unavoidable. You seem to live inside a futuristic Jim Jarmusch film that will never be made. Easily, your best release since Folktronic (which is my favorite, now only by a slight edge).

lady france knickers

[sadlittlemonkey.livejournal.com]

otto spooky is my second momus album after stars forever. i listen to it once a week. i don't play anything before or after it... it's disorienting enough even without the intermezzi as it were (which are f*ckin' superb, by the way)

what is great? sempreverde, life of the fields, robin hood, lute score
what grates? cockle pickers and perhaps.... the artist overwhelmed (i'm not sure yet)

however... you might like to know that although lady fancy knickers is not a favourite of mine... whenever i pop into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, boil pasta, wash dishes, look into the freezer, make toast, get rice, etc., i start humming the shirelles section of the song... i love that part... "ahhhhhh ah ahhhh... ahhhhh ahh ahhhhhh!" lovely. reminds me of moments on stars forever.

i enjoy taking walks with the album. for example, last week i took a two hour walk in the suburbs... the speeding cars and ugly trackhousing which usually grate my nerves were transported to little bubbles which floated up to the sky. i became entranced... feeling my way through my own perspex cube... fields of orange and pink, shrines, ithyphallic dogs, taxi rides in foreign countries, peg legged singers sitting on a porch, the son of god walking with me telling a story... these people and places replaced the normal dog, bus stop and liquor store one passes on a mid-morning walk. thank you!

highlights:

sempreverde // absolute masterpiece // the production quality is amazingly simple but effective. the computer generated/manipulated singing gives me the creeps even more than bjork's all is full of love video. the instrumentals over the lyrics towards the end gives me the chills.

life of the fields // i forget... was this the 'new order' track? // there's this overwhelming sense of build up throughout... this push and pull... i love the constant beat... it reminds me of some of my favourite summer tracks... you know, the kind of music you listen to while sitting on your california porch with a cocktail... feeling nostalgic... soaking up sun... songs like: harmony korine (kahimi karie), electric relaxation (tribe called quest), a dancehall remix of the fugees,

robin hood // link from zelda gets picked up and thrown into a rockin' 80s track with hot air guitar and big hair... we built this city on rock and roll...momus!

bantam boys // this is just creepy/sad/familiar // maybe it was my previous life!

more later <3 <3 <3

alec
a.k.a. sadlittlemonkey

how much for the canon?

[(Anonymous)]

ridiculously, i'm using parcelforce to get data from your laptop into my ipod, so it might be a while until i can tell you. to business: i've illegally downloaded everything you've done since timelord, your last vinyl release (snob/retro/contrivance/nocdplayer i bought the rest, and new too) but you undeniably deserve my cash, so i'd like the opportunity to make amends and paypal over my conscience. how much for the canon? i suppose you'd get less than 20% of cover price from a record label if i'd bought them, so maybe 2 or 3 quid an album for the content? do feel free to contrive a reason why it should be five times that much, though, like all the guys who sell mp3s for a living. i bought the last two by the way, so i think i owe you for about six. although for some reason i don't listen to the songs on the portraits/patronage one much. although, again, it was a brilliant idea, so on that one can you give me an estimate for the concept without the content?

[(Anonymous)]

"Your Fat Friend" is great. I love how everything sounds slightly off key.

Patrick

[sakuraamplifier.livejournal.com]

I think Otto is wonderful overall, but I've noticed on your last couple of releases (this and Summerisle) that you've started making some songs that I find too depressing to listen to. For some reason, the sampled speech at the end of "The Artist Overwhelmed" pushed these buttons for me, as did all of "Bantam Boys". Something about the warblyness of some of the sounds, I guess.

Those are really my only complaints, though. I think your records continue to sound better and better–and not in the sense that they are "more polished", but in the sense that it gets harder and harder to pick out what instruments/electronics are used to make any given sound. "Lute Score" is an example that springs to mind here, and is probably my favorite track on the album. Speaking of "Lute Score", I was wondering if the line "Something to do with the free bamboo, something to do with the snow" was intentionally echoing "Something to do with a chopper, something to do with my head" from "Last of the Window-Cleaners".

A few of Otto's songs have wormed their way into my daily life--while doing laundry yesterday, I couldn't get "Belvedere" out of my head, and "Corkscrew King" can pop into my brain just about any time. I don't think Otto trumps my previous favorite Momus albums, Oskar Tennis Champion and Philosophy of Momus (the former becuase the songs are just so great, the latter because of all the good and bad associations I have with it), but I only got my copy on Friday, so maybe with time it will rank higher.