 Lowbelly
"The Mysteriously Untitled Fourth Album" CD
Fort
Hazel
Genres: jazz, indie rock, surf
Fort Hazel
1400 Hill Road
Boise ID 83702
Oct 14 - 20 2002 |
Yeah,
baby, yeah! This, Lowbelly's Mysteriously Untitled Fourth
Album, is exactly what I wanted to hear. This is just loose,
playful jazz with a bit of a rock vibe to it. Not only that, but it's
on the fantastically diy Fort Hazel label of Boise, Idaho!
Featuring thirteen wonderful tracks, two of which are covers of Henry
Mancini and Yes tunes, this album is a thoroughly
entertaining listen. The starter, "Grow Bug," starts the
album off on an electronicized rock note, but the album quickly moves
into "cartoon jazz" territory with "March of the
Swingers," a surf-rock inspired clarinet-solo freak-out that will
get your head bobbing.
Then comes "Blue Mantilla," a pleasantly
true-to-the-original version of Henry Mancini's lounge classic.
"Momma Had To Go," which follows, is a delicious morsel of
laidback groovy-ness set to a delectable jazz beat. The band's choice
to include surf guitar in a jazz context works fantastically, making
for a swanky jazz toe-tap-a-thon.
The other tracks on this album, including the funky "With His
Pointed Shoes" and the loose "Selected Grains" are also
lots of fun, and Lowbelly sounds so great with their craft that
it seems as if they were born for the jazz swung beat.
Everything just sounds so natural, from the beautiful treble of the
chirping guitars to the twisting and turning of the improvised solo
clarinet.
But it isn't until "Troutdale," this album's eighth
track, that we finally experience Lowbelly at their best. With
a fantastic organ chord progression in the background, the song is
exactly what you'd want to hear at a dimly-lit jazz club, sipping down
space-age martinis with pimento-eyed olives floating in them.
While there are some deviations (the more electronic-based "Of
Green Pastures", the playful toy-orchestrated "The Action is
the Creation"), Lowbelly seem to prefer the jazz style to
other genres, and thankfully it's what they're best at. To put it
frankly, this is one of the best diy releases I've ever heard.
88%
Matt Shimmer [Vitals:
35 min 26 sec; 13 tracks; distributed by the
label;
released 2000] |
