There’s some music that really isn’t meant to be written about, and ‘Position Normal’s ‘Jimmy Had Jane’ featured on the beautifully loony, ‘Get Lost!’ compilation illustrates this point rather adequately. It’s not really dance, it’s not really jazz, it’s not really easy-listening, it’s not really a song. It’s not really one thing or the other, in much the same way a Pot Noodle is neither a square-meal in itself or a satisfying snack. And not knowing how to describe it, I naturally sought the assistance of the Online Cambridge Dictionary. They define ‘neither one thing nor the other’ as a mixture of two different things, often things that do not combine well. A book could be either fact or fiction, but when it was Science Fiction it was both; neither one thing nor the other. Neither fish nor fowl. Neither Hero nor Villain. Neither hit nor run. But this didn’t really answer anything. This record did combine well. And it wasn’t just two different things, but loads of them. So next stop was Google. Natch. “Neither one thing nor the other – Joyce’s Leopold and Molly Bloom“. It sounded great. It sounded fantastic, but not knowing either Leopold or Molly, I can’t say with any certainty that it helped explain it any.
The chinese had a word for it though: bù san bù sì. And the French Expressionists too; Une musique indfinissable. But nothing clever about that. Music that was inqualifiable, inclassable, indescribable. Well I knew that already.
When this situation arises, I usually (and without exception) start plucking things from the press sheet hoping something just might stick, and that I might at least sound like I know what I’m talking about. Was ‘Get Lost!’ as deep and as tripped out a fusion of ‘mighty mastercuts, techno toys and special songs carefully excavated from the electronic underground’ as it claimed to be? Perhaps we’ll never know, but it did have its techno element and it was certainly from the underground. I’d never heard of most of them, so it just had to be from the underground. ‘Four Tet’ I knew about. ‘Si Begg’ I knew about. Under the right pretence I might even be able to get away with saying I knew all about ‘Add Noise’ and the ‘Anaerobic Robots’ – and I wish I had, as they’re a raving sweet bonkers success in my opinion.
What facts there are though are as follows. ‘Get Lost’ is the first mix album from Damian Lazarus since last year’s ‘Rebel Futurism’, and the ‘Suck My Deck’ compilation and features artwork created by LA based artist, Natalia Fabia. Glasses filled with illuminous liquids, ladies holding weasels and octopus haircuts are just some of the weird and wonderful images to be found on the booklet and sleeves.
An ‘after club’ experience would describe it well. But an ‘after-life’ experience would describe it better. Bleeps, bloops, buzzes, things that grind, blinding flashes of light, journeys through long, dilating worm holes in space, cosmic nebulae, a feeling of general well being – that kind of thing. All spread evenly across two discs.
Last effort. A crazy, mixed-up Octopus on acid, with a laptop and a copy of Fruity Loops at his disposal. Neither something nor nothing. Neither one thing nor the other. But consistently fun, either way.