Responding to someone’s request on Facebook to ‘review their latest album’ can be dangerous territory. I vowed never to do it again, since most of the stuff I hear, I can’t articulate words for, holistic journalism is much harder than what they do over at Shovel or whatever their called! But there was an inert pull to respond to this call, like the album knew it wanted me to hear it with my ears and it wanted someone to articulate, brilliantly, at least a slither of what it has to offer. So here is a pile of words, in order, describing my experience with the album named in the headline. *ahem*
So the guy, the fella, the one who posted the comment sent a link over via email and I actually remembered to check my inbox and click the link and sit there and listening to the bloody thing.
Now what? Now I talk about that experience? Sitting in my cold office, sans electric blanket cos the wife has it, my low mileage little monitors ready to receive the audio signals from my nice wires? Is that what we’re here for because I’ll give it a good go right now.
With a ‘band’ name like Egg Spectrum and a zany pink n’ yellow bandcamp, littered with zany sketches and each and every crevice of words piled up like moon language, making less sense than before you asked who was in the ‘band’ is it even a ‘band’ what’s with all these inverted commas, did ‘we’ buy ‘too many’? you’d expect some of the much fashionable egg-punk stylee music and truth be told that’s there, sure enough, true to the egg brand. But if egg be the yolk of punk then this absolute rigarmarole of MENTALHEALTH/AND/OR/DRUG (delete as appropriate) fuelled album is a total omelette. Jokes aside though, the realness in this album, it hurts a bit, because it’s real… but for the most part at least, the inspiration and reason behind it all, could only be actual experience, it’s a IYKYK kinda deal, but it’s plain as day, written on every little note and wiggle of every song, the vocal delivery, wide and varied as it is from start to finish maintains a consistent signature of real gosh darn life experience, so no matter how zany, off-kilter and wacko this aural journey might get, it’s always anchored to something real, and in this collection of works, you feel that. boyoboy.
Throw some buzzwords around now I fucking dare you, oh man, it’s outsider, it’s leftfield, lo-fi, midnight, cottage industry, locally sourced, boognish derived, lcd, um… so fetch really… pure all the way through, music made the way it was made because that’s how it had to be made, it had to be made because it had to be made. Reminds me of the time my mate played one of my tracks to his misses and she just asked’ whose this for?’ – it just needs to be. The whole while I’m listening to this, the album, Egg Spectrum’s Stinky Sketchbook 2025 (that’s the name of the album) thinking christ this album is made for me. Don’t listen to it, I don’t give a hoot, I’ve heard it, it’s fucking perfect.
There’s a mix of lo-fi seriously cassette-tape-recorded-in-garage vibe punky-tunes on there, all the makings of finding recordings from your dad’s old bands, but with that pre-20 post-16 melancholy we all like to roll around in now and again, the kind of stuff Morrissey oozes. Emotional Debt, stunning track, that heart-breaking warbling organ, an underlying signature of sincerity in every audible moresos.
Hip-hop stylings, in sampling ethereal samples, piles and loops, otherworldly, ON THE MIKE hits with the relentless tiring shlog of Earl Sweatshirt, welsh tinged like Nobsta Nuts, lo-fi blown out beats, carnival-esque patter, carving narratives, building worlds like Serengeti, the music a melting, dripping backdrop to rainy nights in narrative. Dropped into fifties styling croony-pre-rock sadness, Departure. A warm bath, a sanctuary, mid-album, safe, familiar… misleading, goodbye? No we’ve another 13 minutes of world-rocking to go! This seemingly ‘normal’ tune, an oasis amongst the.. not chaos, wrong word but like… when you unleash a gifted child into a room full of toys n’ gadgets and they run from one to one, wildly setting it off and creating an endearing havoc – ? you know? That’s what this album is, it’s endearing havoc, much like watching a gifted child creating a big ol’ mess in overstimulating joy. The lego is everywhere, the scalectrix is whizzing around unmanned, the paint pots are leaking, it’s devastating, but for now, just enjoy it.
I don’t know if there’s an underlying theme to the album nor have I attempted to find one, there’s a strong implication that tracks have been added to it throughout the year ‘akin to a sketchbook’ as the blarb on the bandcamp page would suggest. I really like that idea, and hope it was true. I’ve no reason to suggest that the person behind this music (and indeed so much more on the bandcamp page to explore) would lie like that!
My worry at the moment is that I will listen to the album too much and it won’t be unfamiliar anymore, right now it’s a lot of fun listening for all the different sounds, the subtle vocoder-like buzz throughout Loose Laces, I’m not telling you about any others, find ’em yourself.
Listen I just looked at EGG SPECTRUM’S Facebook page and it says omelette on there but let me tell you I didn’t know that when I started writing this so that’s my original idea, ta.
To conclude my music review of this new album available January 1st (Why not join the listening party at 1630 hours) this incoherent, chaos but not chaos… what was it? Endearing havoc, not incoherent either, that’s not quite right… like it IS coherent, at the very least HERENT… it’s just not, it’s not Radio 1 music LETMETELLYOU… If we get to brass tacks, if you like artists like Arthur, Slugbug, early Ween, Eye Bent Grape Spasm, The Residents you’re going to win here… if you like, the kind of music that you you the person who made it thinks it’s perfectly normal but everyone else is like, no, it’s not… you’ll like this. It has a fat-pie, air of otherworldly unsettling to it, a little bit frightening at times. How can a rap about soya milk be scary? I don’t know but it is this time.
Six eggs!
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