It has been a while - far too long - since I’ve
made a post on here, much less an album review.
To put things simply, I got myself caught in some kind of musical funk
and hadn’t found anything that truly grabbed me with inspiration. That is, until I stumbled upon this somewhat
viral video of a bizarre karaoke performance:
Intrigued, I looked up this guy Neil Cicierega
to listen to the original mashup. Now, I
was in a state of mind at the time that lends itself well to this type of
thing…and my mind, frankly, was blown. I
immediately began playing his mashup album Mouth Sounds from the beginning, and for all intents and
purposes spent the next hour or two mentally stumbling through the 90s on
acid. Even after I emerged, I proceeded
to spend the ensuing weeks with Neil C’s music on repeat. I was unable to find (or even fathom)
anything to listen to that is as creative and continuously satisfying.
There are
plenty of mashup artists that have been around longer and have achieved a much
higher profile than Neil Cicierega.
While acts like Girl Talk and The Hood Internet are great at what they
do, Neil takes a different approach. A
comedian and video artist by trade, with original music under the name Lemon
Demon, he blends together not only different songs, but radio broadcasts, news
snippets, samples from tv shows and jingles, and whatever else he can get his
hands on into a surreal collage of pop culture.
In order to make everything fit into place, many of the samples
themselves are and manipulated, oftentimes with jarring effect.
 |
| If this isn't the face of a madman, I don't know what is |
Mouth Sounds begins with the first words of
Smash Mouth’s All Star manipulated into a number of MIDI samples and presented
as an entirely new melody. As the album
unfolds like a fever dream, All Star, and Smash Mouth in general, become
recurring motifs. Cicierega manages to
blend All Star with Modest Mouse’s hit Float On without any noticeable
alterations to either song through both of their entireties, and later he blasphemously
does the same with John Lennon’s Imagine- as heard in the near-viral karaoke
video.
Alongside the more straightforward mashups are
several entirely new songs made up of handfuls of existing ones. The surrealism comes in when C incorporates samples
from movies and TV shows. Through most of D'oh there are three or four different songs playing simultaneously- in addition to the voices of Homer Simpson, Austin Powers, and the theme song from the 90s cartoon Doug. As we trudge arm in arm with Steve Harwell though the twisted pile of nostalgic sludge we are joined by the likes of Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Huey Lewis, Rob Thomas, and the Men in Black; among others- all in rapid-fire succession. Meanwhile there are extended noisy
interludes scattered throughout, one of which flowing into a dramatic rendition
of the original viral joke Chocolate Rain (crossed with the “Tears in the Rain” speech
from the 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner).
At one point Mouth Sounds drops everything to play a sequence of seven
or eight intro jingles from film production companies (Nickelodeon, 20th Century Fox, etc), for no apparent reason other than to further twist and skew
our expectations of familiar sounds.
All throughout the madness the album’s tracks
refer back to each other, such as when the Full House theme song bursts in on
You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette, a wink to the failed real-life
relationship between Alanis and Dave Coulier (aka Uncle Joey) which inspired
the song. It’s this type of
self-referential humor that gives the album a sense of cohesion and momentum
beyond just being a bunch of bizarre concoctions.
That said, abrasiveness is not something that Cicierega shies away from on Mouth Sounds. Although in the end it is held up on the strength of it's execution and surprising catchiness, this is an album that gleefully offends and oftentimes revels in its own tastelessness. You don't cross the undeniable artistic expression of Imagine with the comparatively vapid All Star without having a certain rogue sense of humor. The genius lies in the way Cicierega finds to simply make it all work. His fearless deconstruction of such classic works results in an entirely new creation- and dare I say an entirely new artistic statement?
Take a listen below, or download the album for free via Neil's Website
Mouth Sounds Tracklist
01. Promenade (Satellite Pictures at an Exhibition)
02. Modest Mouth
03. D'oh
04. Vivid Memories Turn to Fantasies
05. Bills Like Jean Spirit
06. Full Mouth
07. Alanis
08. Imagine All Star People
09. Imma Let it Be
10. Daft Mouth
11. Like Tears in Chocolate Rain
12. No Credit Card
13. Bega Interlude
14. Melt Everyone
15. The Sharpest Tool
16. Mullet with Butterfly Wings
17. Smooth Flow
