ABOUT - bongo

(CD, cock rock disco)

Have you ever spent an hour or so wondering if there are people out there interested in knowing what a mix of Butthole Surfers and They Might Be Giants transferred into electronic scene of the now would sound like? Except weird, that is. That is one part Electroclash, one part freak of nature and a spritzer of Oi Oi Oi! Or one part glitches, one part breakcore and noise, one part trip hop and a dropping of nintendo music. With a feeling for melodies as big as a whale wearing a mask of Wayne Coyne (or what was the name of the singer of Slade) heaped on top of the whole thing. Like Fantomas having turned indie-pop. And humour, lots of fun and maybe even some tongue in cheek-ness, but that about wraps it up for the musical side.

Now it is time to get to the personal side and pay respects to Rutger Hoedemakers for boldness and bravery. “I want to be / like Eric Satie / more modest” he sings and a moment and one song later a female voice sings “I want to be part of your collective memory” and in between these two polar opposites is the approach to stardom for About. A track like “banddynamics” should be a dancefloor-filler in all indie-discos around the globe, with the possibility of various remixes and fame (and fortune) in true DFA style. And since DFA got away with translucent ballads on their album, there is no reason why About shouldn’t be able to do the same.

Even amongst the childlike weirdness and playful approach of using various kinds of instruments, the more or less random left channel / right channel bursts the tuba or tuba-like sounds (“friends applaud , the comedy is over” – a song that would make Badlydrawnboy’s eyes water) and the lo-fi recorded chugga chugga guitarriffs, it would be a mistake to name About as a simple musical project. The truth is quite different, there has to have been a lot of planning before and while these tracks were conjured up and then produced. My guess is that there is a good reason for everything on here. Just the same way I find it hard to believe that this is album is the result of a single mind, because “bongo” sounds a lot like a band record.

After all, weirdness alone doesn’t carry music for long. All those novelty records I once bought are catching dust somewhere and are never really re-listened to. Because once you know their shtick it is quite unrewarding to listen to them. About has no clearly layed out plan on the one hand, and on the other there is definitely a pop-quality in the songwriting (that is where the They Might Be Giants thing comes in) that gives the tracks further credibility and usability for the listener. As much as these dudes try to, they won’t be able to hide this quality in their work, even if they try to bury it underneath a truckload of silly keyboard samples and small noisy things everywhere.

There is just one question left: why did this record make me mention so many other bands and artists? Because usually, that is completely against my own conviction. Could be a hint at the fact that this has to be a record really hard to pin down, because it squiggles and whirls and tries to slip out underneath and between your fingers. And even if you try to hit it with your fist or your shoe, it feels no pain but simply draws away its extremities.