Quack Quack - Slow As An Eyeball (Cuckundoo)
3/5
By: Richard Brant
Quack Quack were formed back in 2005 by former Bilge Pump drummer Neil Turpin as a means to make music that would make him happy, and the resulting Slow As An Eye Ball is music without compromise. Not playing to please anyone in particular, just playing because it puts a smile on their face, if Quack Quack pick up a few admirers along the way, so be it, the more the merrier.
To kick start the exploration of musical influences spanning the last 40 years ‘Perpetual Spinach’ softly gets the ball rolling. An ice cream van like melody softly cycles around notably brilliant drumming, while guitar chimes blast in intermittently and galactic sounding keyboards burst in midway with darker grandeur.
Slow As An Eye Ball settles in to repetitive melodies, but clear jazz influences and rampant improvisation keep it loose and erratic. The unexpected is always around the corner. The album takes a turn towards the 70’s with tracks that conjure images of classic films and TV cop shows with their iconic jazz tinged theme tunes. ‘Three’ with its interrupting siren sounds, moody bass and piano could have easily been featured in some leather jacket clad detective’s opening sequence. In ‘Toc H’ you could easily imagine Clint Eastwood as Harry Callaghan driving around the mean streets of San Francisco looking for “perps.” It has that gritty grooving bass, commanding brass and complimentary organ jabs, supplying dirty urban imagery. Glimmers of this 70’s atmosphere can be heard later in the funk driven ‘Cakes are Easy.’
Moving on to ‘Phonehenge’ you might well think you’ve stayed within the same era, but flicked channels over to The Magic Roundabout as a strange chiming key board lead tune blasts out careered along by a number of weird and wonderfully strange sounds so associated with those old kids programmes.
‘Big Sounds’ steps out as something of an oddity from the rest with its slapping drums and mean solitary rock guitar riff jolting memories of very early Foo Fighters’ more haphazard, less produced style. It eases in to a relaxed key board melody before blasting back in to that rampant riffing towards the end.
‘Bird Parliament’ heads overseas in to quite bizarre middle eastern snake charming territory as pentatonic style organ scales ring throughout over lumbering bass lines. Our middle eastern trip comes crashing back to an urban scene though with the frantic drumming, keyboards and bass of near title track ‘As Slow as an Eyeball’ ringing around in a wild electro jazz blast. This hectic flare up is aided somewhat by the added wild drumming and spluttering, squealing saxophone of Polar Bear’s Seb Rochford and Pete Wareham.
We’re brought to the finish line by the THX sounding start of ‘Jack of None’ (you know the start of films at the cinema when they test the surround sound and you feel like your head’s about to explode… that sound.) The track has a somewhat oriental feeling to it with the climbing and falling keyboard only interrupted periodically by growling brass, bass and guitars.
The quest for improvisation and exploration is firmly rooted at the centre of Slow As An Eye Ball. It wouldn’t surprise me if Quack Quack had just cracked through these tracks in one take to ensure a “live” feel. Turpin’s drumming is quite exceptional and particularly in the more distinctly “urban” parts of the album I’m reminded of Steve Reid and Kieran Hebden’s collaboration on NYC.
There’s unlikely to be much in the way of mainstream acceptance to Slow As An Eyeball, but that of course was never the goal. There’s jazz, there’s rock, there’s funk, there’s groove, there are some bits that are downright bizarre, but if all Neil Turpin set out to do is perform music the way he wanted, he has certainly achieved that. Assuming the results have indeed made him happy then his smile is infectious, because at times you just can’t help but grin inanely at the sheer exuberance of it all.
Artists in this article: Quack Quack
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