In Print  Home  Directories  Reviews  Get In Touch  Forums  Links  Gig Guide  

BABYMASH: Crosscontamination & Music Found Behind The Old Couch

Glen Fletcher provides a confounding package with this double-disc clearing house of ambient drum music. His multipage handwritten press release informs that he is a ‘big beats freakazoid’ who has played previously with Serotonin, Feast of Stevens and Bullfrog Rata. Also that he is an eccentric manic depressive. This description is borne out by his music that wends a thread of free jazz to somewhere between John Zorn and Daniel Johnston. 19 tracks, recorded between 1994 and 2006 with 18 supporting players, include a grand piano and drum kit trilogy. Fletcher’s vocals range from strangulated wailing to melodramatic narration, confessional whisper and bebop scat. There is a dizzying array of virtuoso jazz bass, piano, percussion, mania, electronic and acoustic drums, keyboards, multifarious guitar textures and random miscellania. “I’m afraid of normal folk” the song Normal Folk Blues confides. This is quite possibly genius, mad, or both. Either way, with two hours of music encompassing both the ridiculous and the sublime, there’s plenty to masticate on. Regardless of its popular appeal, Fletcher deserves props for the audacity of his musical ambition. An individual avant-garde magnum opus.

Related Information