Funky, But Freak!!! Dandelion Gum--Black Moth Super Rainbow--

When I first heard of Black Moth Super Rainbow, I assumed that they were a Japanese band. Turns out this is a band from Western Pennsylvania, US of A. To say that this album is excellent is an understatement; if there were more albums like Dandelion Gum, people wouldn't need need drugs! Beneath the haze of bleeping analog synths there are some terrific succinct tunes on this 45 minute disk. It sounds like they construct a song and then bend it like silly putty, put it through a meat grinder. If you are a purist and like to keep your genres separate this might not be for you. Because folk, new wave, psychedelic rock, funk, are all mushed together in a KFC dogbowl of listening pleasure.



As much as I appreciate the punk ethos of name change, sometimes the names make me cringe; it reminds me of ordering off children's menus in restaurants when I was growing up. I was embarrassed to order the entrees with the silly titles. So, here goes. Past and present members of the band include Tobacco, The Seven Fields of Aphelion, Father Hummingbird, Power Pill Fist, Ryan Graveface, d. Kyler. According to everything I've read, they keep their personal lives close to the vest. What I do know is that Dandelion Gum is always challenging, never dull, like a looser, more organic Tortoise. Even that is not entirely accurate--these guys do what they want to do, so there's not a lot of purpose in pinning them down, even if you could.
I don't think even the lo-fi aesthetic exists here either, because the music is so well put together here, the songs are too short for self-indulgent jamming, and sophisticated, diverse use of sounds and beats here challenge any accusations of simplicity.

So what is here is an eccentric, catchy sounding, well thought out record. The vocals are buried in distortion and vocoders, so that they are more like another instrument in the mix as much as a focal point. For all the descriptions of the music, I am surprised that more is not made of Dandelion Gum's inherent funkiness; I could see rappers getting a lot of mileage out of this. But there is so much going on in this album and unlike a lot of albums, you look forward to hear what will happen next, because it is far from obvious. They don't beat you over the head with the music all the time. At times they get stripped down to acoustic folk, and they definitely work with space well and sometimes it seems the rhythms and the melodies veer of in different directions to interesting effect. In a nutshell, the music makes my eardrums tingle. If you are a fan of psychedelic music you really need to hear this. If you like the synth pop of the 80's, you have psychedelic renderings of that style here. What you need to know is that this album is an infectiously challenging listen from start to finish.