You get the feeling that there are three great, unrelated, unfinished projects or ideas here, all waiting for a moment of clarity… like a meeting of three people at a party who have nothing to say to each other.
Japanther – Tut Tut, Now Shake Ya Butt
(Truth Cult) http://www.southern.com/
One of those LPs that has skulked around Incendiary Towers for quite a while, near enough a year in fact – waiting for me to sit down and write about it, despite it being on the turntable quite regularly… It’s a shame it has taken me so long to tell you about it because the ‘just add water’, lo-fi punk nonsense shown in tracks like Bumpin’ Rap Tapes or Bloated Corpse are a lot of fun, to be honest. And that’s not all. Spank Rock turns up to rap about getting busted by The Man on Radical Businessman. And Crass legend Penny Rimbaud read some of his poems too, (Africa Seems So Far Away and the Moondog meets Vincent Price mash-up of I the Indigene).
It’s this mix of long drawn out poetic spleen, political rap, and giddy, deliberately crap samples and pop nursery rhymes that informs the LP, for better or for worse. No element seems comfortable with the others; Tut Tut, Now Shake Ya Butt feels like a sonic car crash that the listener can’t really reconcile, despite the undisputed moments of brilliance, (The Windex is the best track the Ramones never wrote). You get the feeling that there are three great, unrelated, unfinished projects or ideas here, all waiting for a moment of clarity, the gift of vision (to quote an old 80’s pop star). It’s like a meeting of three people at a party who have nothing to say to each other. Shame, but still, I recommend you listen to it.