Customer Reviews

Ectopia

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Because...

If you're a J.G. Thirlwell fan and finally came across a link to order a brand new release of his "Steroid Maximus" incarnation, you don't *really* need to read a review, do you?

It's exactly what you think it is: Incredible.

These original "cinematic" instrumental compositions will engage and thrill you from start to finish. Think of a musical genre, e.g. latin, techno, big band, rock, classical, world, etc. Now, layer each of them, one after another, into the same cake. Add genius, mood, insanity. Stir. Crank. Eat.

You'll be giddy just to know something like this exists ... so buy it, listen to it, and pray to St. Cecilia for more. []

Although I must admit that I prefer selected tracks from the previous Steroid Maximus releases (Quilumbo!), Ectopia is a much more accessible listen all the way through. Great funky lounge-spy-jazz-big-band-industrial-sountrack-o-rama. Foetus is making an exciting come-back, and anything by J.G. (and his evil twins Raymond Watts and Barry Adamson) is very worth grabbing.

Wow! This music is so cool! It just makes you feel cool all over. It's...GROOVY. The rhythms are so fun, so vibrant that they make me grin from ear to ear. & the electronic jungle of the music is exciting! Jim Thirlwell's creativity is just endless. He just comes up with so much STUFF! For fans of Foetus, what makes this cd so exciting (besides that it's the first time in over a decade that any Steroid Maximus has been readily available), as usual, is that this does not sound like other music he's released. I almost wonder if some music on this cd is disco. Then it's tribal drumming, bachelor pad light chanting, tense ambient, jazz.... & of course the funk. Funk is all over this album. It can also be very alarming, especially in the 5th song, Chain Reaction, where the intensity magnifies exponentially in the brass that blasts a "W"-shaped melody with huge leaps of pitch over & over until the party's ankles break & the song ends. Mercifully, that song is bracketed by 2 songs that are much lighter. They're not "ambient" per se...they're spacey & hard to describe verbally. You can tell this cd was composed by Jim Thirlwell because so much of the music on it is so unlike anything else you'll recognise, & that's why it's hard to describe. The rhythms that make you dance up the walls can be so complex that they're difficult at first to get stuck in your head. It begins with space, a heartbeat, & a section that sounds very remiscent of one of the great rhythms of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, a groundbreaking piece of music Jim Thirlwell has sampled directly from before. After that, expect anything. Buy this cd! It's an inspired work of great genius!

If you are a fan of the Venture Bros. then you will know what to expect from J. G. Thirlwell. His music is weird, bizarre and sometimes downright disturbing but always interesting,bordering at times on a Beethoven like tortured genius. If you have not come across his music before then Ectopia is a good example of both his work in general and his capacity to get you thinking what kind of mind composes music like this. It is like throwing every kind of musical genre you can think of into a great big pot, stirring it and pouring out the resulting brew. You will probably love it or loathe it but it does have moments of brilliance. If you do love it, then you will want more.

I've only listened to the CD once, so far. I know already it will be my obsession for the next several weeks. J.G. Thirlwell is musical genius personified. Someone needs to make a movie based around this "soundtrack." Incredible stuff. Just incredible.

Falling on the accessibly fun side of Mr. Bungle-esque schiz-rock, Ectopia brandishes all of the studio smarts and chameleon-like production found in engrossing hyper-fused music, though usually without much of the compositional drive to take it past the point of merely entertaining.