Jaga Jazzist - The Stix

Jaga Jazzist - The Stix (2002) on Warner Music Norway/Smalltown Supersound

1. Kitty Wú
2. Day
3. Another Day
4. Reminders
5. Suomi Finland
6. Toxic Dart
7. I Could Have Killed Him In The Sauna
8. Aerial Bright Dark Round
9. Doppelganger
10. The Stix

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?y2yroyyuy2j

If there's one thing I've learned in recent years, it's that Norway has one hell of a music scene. These guys are considered part of the "Scandinavian nu-jazz revival" or something, I could care less, they just kill it.

The best thing about Jaga Jazzist, as well as all Norwegian music I've been able to get my hands on, is its complete openness. The willingness to use anything as long as it appropriately adds to the music. So while Jaga Jazzist is rooted in jazz, anything is fair game. The Stix happens to be their most "electronic" sounding album, with a lot of the drumming being programmed. Sometimes they even branch into glitch and IDM territory. With 10 people in the band, all of which are multi-instrumentalists, the sound is pretty rich. I'm not going to ramble on, as the music does best by speaking for itself.

It's worth noting that this is the Norwegian version, which has a pretty different track ordering and alternate cover art to the international version released on Smalltown Supersound/Ninja Tune a year later.

Idiot Flesh - Fancy

Idiot Flesh - Fancy (1997) on Vaccination Records

1. Dead Like Us
2. Idiot Song
3. Teen Devil Worshipper
4. Chicken Little
5. Twitch
6. Drowning
7. Motherfucker
8. Bach Is Dead
9. Diggity Cow And The Dandy Mr. Clyde
10. The Straw
11. Cheesus (Dance Mix)
12. People In Your Neighborhood
13. Dead Like Us (Reprise)

http://www.mediafire.com/?yznwkqwkmjz

For some peculiar reason, any band that happens to be amazing & also have strong avant-garde tendencies just so happens to be from the San Fransisco/Oakland area. Maybe it's something in the water, or they've all spent too much time at Barrington Hall. All that matters it that this album is pretty epic, as in, "easily makes desert island 10 list" epic.

Idiot Flesh, as rumors have it, broke up in 1998 when they were offered their first record deal. That would be the sort of news that you cry yourself to sleep over, except members Nils Frykdahl & Dan Rathbun went on to form Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Everything about Idiot Flesh is "outside the box." They had no actual frontman, everyone but the drummer sang. They were also all multi-instrumentalists, so the aural palette is much wider than your average album.

The absurdity of the songs is fantastic. "Teen Devil Worshipper" was inspired by an episode of Geraldo Rivera. "Chicken Little" differs from the children's tale in that the sky does actually fall at the end. There's a Residents cover and a Sesame Street cover (more of a skit really). Musically, the album ends with "The Straw" which puts the entirety of T.S. Elliot's "The Hollow Men" to music.

It's such a shame that this album is not only so difficult to come by, but that when it does surface on eBay, there's no way in hell it sells for less than $70. Supposedly the End Records (the current home to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) has plans to reissue this gem, but is having hang ups on how to reproduce the intricate cardboard folding jacket the CD comes in.