Grampall Jookabox
Scientific Cricket
Joyful Noise 2007

01. Candle, Spirit, Leave
02. Take Me from Diamond Head
03. Ponta
04. Liggle Timmy Toothpick
05. Good Country Folk
06. We're the Small Windows
07. Biz Biz Business
08. Brick People Chant
09. Earlobe Kite
10. Barbarashop Cricketet
11. Rusty Wife
12. Light My Bedroom from Below

While this brittle piece of juju may come across at first as either an outsider wanna-be set or a set in exploitation of outsiders, there's more going on here than meets the critical-pigeon-holing eye. The band sure does seem skewed and slightly mad, but the music they make is more than the external oddity or creepiness. This is a band that plays it small, yet big; their child-like approach to folk, blues drone and jittery dance hits - compelling and un-arguable. Insert your list of favorite disturbed savants here, and put many of the songs on Scientific Cricket at the top of it.

While sounding like they were recorded in a baby's crib in a room with one light bulb and no glass in the windows, there is a majestic feel to tracks like 'Take Me from Diamond Head' and 'Earlobe Kite'. The unsurprisingly automatic-writing feel of the lyrics address the minutiae of small space and attention span. The genius of the music and the words here, especially on 'We're the Small Windows' is in the intent; whether through despair, drugs, or a bad handout at the gene pool, these songs are as confident as they are disturbed. That is the glory of this record: every mistake, every gamble, every threat to fall apart feels deliberate. -M. Wood

>> gsize / rapid (87mb) (d-_-b)
>> love it, buy it (Joyful Noise)

Nothing useful that I'd like to add, except to say it's very much a grower. Have fun.