New Yorker Charlie Looker has the sort of CV which is liable to inspire admiration rather than adoration where this writer's concerned. In it, he has entries like time spent with brutal chamber ensemble Zs and collaborations with avant-garde composers such as Glenn Branca. Impressive, high-brow stuff, but not the sort of guys you'd turn to when you fancy a snappy garage rock thrill or three.
Thus, I approached Charlie's second album as Extra Life frontman with a certain element of caution, especially when I noticed the band also include 'experimental' movers and shakers like violinist Caley Monahon-Ward and sax/ keyboard meister Travis Laplante. And, judging by the bizarre melange served up by opening track 'Voluptuous Life', it seems I may have been right to do so. What I heard included dramatic, scurrying bursts of synths, bouncy, post-modernist Beefheart-ian rhythms and lots of bells and cymbals. Er, playful Prog-Opera with vocals sounding like they should be ripped from a They Might Be Giants album anyone?
I doubted there'd be many takers for that one, but while 'Made Flesh' makes a mockery of genre pigeon-holing, it's not without a certain compelling something, especially when it takes the occasional lush and folks-y turn for the better. 'Black Hoodie' is perhaps the best example of this approach and with its' fragile acoustic framework, soothing violin and woodwind, it recalls the oasis of calm provided by the songs 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Song To The Siren' on Tim Buckley's otherwise challenging 'Starsailor' album. Recent single 'Head Shrinker' ain't bad either, again taking its' cue from an introspective, Elliott Smith-style perspective, even if its' bells and strings take it in an entirely different direction altogether. There again, its' glee at using the word “vagina” in the lyric probably scuppers its' commercial potential.
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Elsewhere, though, the arcane sonic alchemy proves too strong to take in one sitting. Tracks like 'One of Your Whores' and 'Easter' attempt to meld Mittel-European madrigals with dissonant abstraction and swathes of industrial noise and bring out this writer's usual response to such assaults: the desire to either do the washing-up or some dead-heading in the garden. Well, a guy's gotta pass the time when there are no supermodels or wraps of cocaine around, right?
Ultimately Extra Life will certainly provoke a reaction, and probably a pretty extreme one at that. In itself, that's probably a victory and it's also true that the curious stylistic spew Charlie Looker and his talented cohorts throw out here isn't without the occasional beautiful colour. Overall, though, 'Made Flesh' may be keen to lay its' soul bare, but it may all be a bit too Dorian Gray for the casual observer to stomach.
L-o-a-f Recordings online
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