It’s like very, very, bad DAF or a kid’s casio version of Goldfrapp.
It’s like very, very, bad DAF or a kid’s casio version of Goldfrapp.
Overeasy – Bang Your Buck
www.myspace.com/overeasysounds
Fasten seatbelts, for this is not an easy ride, despite the smooth retro artwork displayed on the cover. Mostly compiled of vignettes of around a minutes length, with a preponderance for lounge-style sounds such as Coltrane-esque brass, husky voices, tippy-tappy, jazzy drumming, Bang Your Buck harks back in spirit to the mid nineties releases such as Barry Adamson’s Oedipus Schmoedipus or Mick Harvey’s Pink Elephants. Yeah, you get the picture.
Love You Forever is a classic growly minimalist dance track, a throbbing, merciless synthesizer is interrupted by a growly voice saying "I love you forever". It’s like very, very, bad DAF or a kid’s casio version of Goldfrapp. The Name of Rock features a very lugubrious voice, like a stoned Harvey Keitel’s, being forced to read inanities from a hotel’s guest book. Robert is Rolling is much more upbeat, thumping drums are accompanied by a sixties flute sound, it doesn’t half remind one of those camp Tarzan films made in the sixties, when the gents always had bush hats with leopard skin trim… I mean it is enjoyable, but one wishes they’d break loose a little more with this sound. Sleazy Sims sees the return of Harvey after a mock-sixties work out.
Don’t Mention the Lord is more interesting in that it’s use of sampling is more fractured and abstract, and consequently more inventive. You Bet closes in on Conny Planck territory, its abstract noodling is actually enjoyable, in that it is seemingly allowed to meander on musically and do its own thing… I have to say I enjoy this album a lot more when the irony is dropped.
This new purpose is carried on in the enjoyable work-out that is called Electricity Comes From Another Planet. This is low-fi dance at it’s best, drawing on early Kraftwerk for it’s time changes, and Add N to X for it’s weird noises. O.v.e.r.e.a.s.y. is a return to the jazzy horns and snares we noticed earlier, and is a quiet, introverted mood piece, despite the odd trumpet blast. An interesting tinkling of sound effects introduces Break My Heart, and the laconic voice starts on a tale of woe in a manner designed no doubt to inspire confidence n womanhood as a whole. Things become more lugubrious in tone with Blessed Without You, a strange amalgam of Tom Waits and DAF. It’s actually pretty good. One can imagine sitting in a rain-sodden Namur or somewhere similar intoning this in your head – it’s pretty bleak. Suddenly the mood changes mid-track and its all yelping… Passed all the days of Yeah Y’alling, is an amalgam of beats and scuzzy synth noises. Nuff said.
Done Well Done is a jazzy run through, whilst Don’t Fuck With Me starts with admirable purpose; the beats displaying a kind of synthesis between late ’70s Kraftwerk and Grand Master Flash’s White Lines. Luckily mogadon voice comes in too late to spoil the track too much. Neither Close Encounters of the Weird Kind nor Bang Your Buck last longer than 50 seconds each, both being a melange of drum beat, xylophone and piano.
In conclusion? Yeah, it’s alright, enjoyable, but it could be even more so if the cool stance was dropped.