Far from the DOA that a number of people in the industry imagined, Busface conjures up another abbreviated expression: AOA, or, as people in the know call it, Adult-Oriented-Acid. But that’s not a slight, it’s a compliment and it certainly beats the unlikely, wide-of-the-mark ‘Nu Funk Electro Breakbeat’ that Busface’s publicists are currently peddling.
As it is, all this should come as no real surprise as one half of Busface, Hugh Brooker (the other half being React Records’ Seb Wronski) first cut his teeth at Acid Jazz Records releasing five albums under the guise of Night Trains and The Humble Souls as well as recording, touring, working with and remixing artists as diverse and confusing as Africa Bambaata, Earth Wind and Fire, Jamiroquai and The Brand New Heavies. Sounds a little far fetched? Not at all. Some folks just like cutting their teeth on as broad a selection of twats as possible: and as unfortunate as it is, Jamiroquai comes well within that remit.
Although the album features vocal contributions from the likes of chart-friendly Sophie Ellis-Bextor (‘Circles’), Spider Johnson (‘Hangin’ Around’) and Moby collaborator Diane Charlemagne (‘4 A Change’, ‘U R The Future’) much of ‘Devils, Sharks & Spaceships’ is build around frantic hi-energy breakbeats, waterpump bass stabs and a quasi Jon Marsh/Beloved moody vocal whisper. At this point you might be braced for a ‘foundations’ and ‘sand’ analogy, but fear not, it’s not half as unsuccessful as it sounds as current single ‘Love Is Like Oxygen’ testifies. With it’s fizzing static intro and evenly spaced bloops and buzzes, this cover of The Sweets’ surprisingly glamless 1979 hit-single reminds you just how pithy you can be with a pop-song:
‘Love Is Like Oxygen/You Get Too Much, You Get Too High/Not Enough And You’re Going To Die/Love Gets You High’
Sounds like its stating the obvious, but in it’s own unruly way, it’s profound, and very much the kind of insight you could only learn from experience. And there’s plenty of that around on this album.
With a vocoder thrown in for good measure ‘Devils, Sharks & Spaceships’ proves there’s life in the old devil yet.