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Album Reviews
Album Review: Jackie-O Motherfucker – The Blood Of Life (Fire Records)
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 10 November 2008
The wonderful Jackie-O Motherfucker are back with a live album that showcases the less extreme end of their musical range. If you are a fan of their atonal free noise brilliance from albums such as ‘America Mystica’ – that, for the unaware, sounds like ‘Sister Ray’ being played backwards with tape-noise and free jazz blaring around it – you may be disappointed. Only the new track ‘The Blood Of Life’ has the requisite length for a similar exploration. Even so, the usually intense experimentation is eschewed for The Grateful Dead’s ‘Live At The Fillmore East’-style noodling with spooky My Cat Is An Alien space rock-style guitar over the top. It is fair to say that much of the feel of the album is that of a folksy Grateful Dead. Seeing as though this album was recorded in Amsterdam there is no real surprise that it is a more subdued affair; the whole band are, I assume, supercaned out of their faces. The album is gratifyingly drenched in warm shimmering treble that lights up arpeggio picking guitars, with gentle lead lines over the top controlled by Danny Sasaki’s drums. I would deem the high point of the album the reworking of ‘Hey! Mr Sky’, that ambles along with Deadish lyrics about “Thunderbirds with fly’s wings”. On top, a distorted guitar modulates and groans with delay and extra reverb as it builds to a moderate peak and then ebbs away – most likely into the Amsterdam fug. Not earth shattering, but a really enjoyable album. PG
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