GUM / Ambrose Kenny-Smith: Ill Times.
p(doom) records
Out Now
This is the debut release on King Gizzard’s newly-announced p(doom) records. As described by King Gizzard, p(doom) records is a label “to put out our own records and our friends too. If you all keep listening to ’em, we’ll keep making ’em.” A match for the achievements of both or a watered-down soup of no significance to either? MK Bennett doubles down.
Dig if you will, a picture. THE Funk does not belong to a style of music, although it is a style of music. A syncopated and bass-heavy thing and done well it is beautiful and soulful music too. When James Brown improvised in the studio, as he often did with his various genius level musicians, he expected them to play on the One and accidentally invented both Funk and THE Funk, as you do. The greatness of THE funk, however, is the swing, above all other things it must swing. Zeppelin had it, The Who did not. The Clash had it, The Pistols did not. It can relate to any music of course, try it yourself.
Collaboration within music can often be a lamentable thing, where you hope for the strong points of both parties but find that the meticulous megalomania that made them brilliant is diluted when working with another of equal stature because it turns out that the particular ego needed for the creation could not compromise and maintain that same level of excellence.
Both of these fellas are in, have been in and still are in, critically acclaimed and widely recognised bands, so they may consider this a busman’s holiday or a meeting of the minds, a weekend away or a piss-up in a brewery. Bearded or not, they are beardy musical types, detailed, considerate, tube amp enthusiasts. A new kind of beautiful Nerd Music, far removed from Steely Dan and the mathematics of logic and quaint boredoms that all that implies. GUM / Ambrose Kenny-Smith – made of Jay Watson (Gum, Pond, Tame Impala) and Ambrose Kenny-Smith (King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Murlocs ) have some high pedigree, but there’s no noticeable pressure at work it sounds joyous from every pore.
Ill Times starts with Dud, which it isn’t, a sweet Yacht Rock update, an idea of the 80s, not the actual sound, it is surprisingly moving, like a half-remembered theme from a childhood TV show, drifting and hazy summer heat rising from City tarmac, this slinks, like a detective avoiding detection. Ill Times itself is next but it is the size of the side of a house, a stall setter and a ballbreaker, it sounds like late-period Led Zeppelin fucking a cartoon whale, synthetic Disco bass to the front, the verses pensive before the bass comes back and makes you want to shake your bones to dust. Song Of The Year so far, a desire to dance increases tenfold in its presence.
Minor Setback is next, a Golden, delicious groove where early Roxy and early Queen co-produce another bass-driven monster with Bolan delivering the vocal from Space. Like a glued together Rubik’s Cube where the stickers still fit, it just works, beautifully. Fool For You sounds as if every great Glam record ever made had left a stain on the tapes, with this and its colossal chorus as the result. So far, a magical, untouchable affair.
It is coherent too, cogent, clear in its task, a remake of something that didn’t exist until their overly fertile minds conspired to invent it. Resilience is Canned Heat and Sly Stone, the bass line walking around looking for a pocket to sit in, harmonica set to stun, it is over before you notice it like a needle in the skin. Powertrippin’ starts so well that some smartarse will remix the song so it’s just 12 minutes of the first four bars, though it changes abruptly into a summer blockbuster, a breeze on your skin, the night getting a little cold, a settling unease before the gorgeous harmonies bring you back to the fire.
Old Transistor Radio is another slinky silver machine, another diamond, bare-bones drums and bass, Funkier Than A Mosquito’s Tweeter, to quote Nina Simone, a honeyed sweet spot that echoes the Beastie Boys instrumental interludes. Emu Rock has that 70’s groove, a nod and a wink to The Loving Spoonful, and once again the rhythm section covers itself in glory, perfect locked grooves dancing together, effortless synchronisation.
Marionette signals a change into a slightly mellower second side, a little more song-based but with more obvious verse-chorus-verse arrangements, a little more cinematic and mysterious, still unknowing, film noir cut by MTV. The Gloater is a lovely keyboard-based trad rock song, Dakota building Lennon and the Lost Weekend and more great vocal arrangements in the backing before it suddenly hits the funk at the coda, trying to reach for the ozone, it could have gone on for some time longer, but the brevity is equal to the brilliance here, an album that’s only a shade over half an hour, that spends the majority of its runtime in the stratosphere.
And does it swing? Oh yes, like a Tories basement.
GUM Instagram | Website / Ambrose Kenny-Smith Instagram / p(doom) Website
All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here plus his Twitter and Instagram
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