Woke up today, got in the car, and a billion tiny metallic noises took off. That was the CD player firing up where it left off last night, in the middle of the third track off the new Mahjongg album. All that banging and scraping was too much for the morning, but it was over soon, and the next track was JUST what I needed.
It’s called “The Stubborn Horse” and it’s wonderful. It starts like it should, with a horse neighing sample (for more equestrian sampling fun see: the Ponys), and kicks right into this dead simple and perfect little stones riff (really just one bent guitar string) accompanied by sighing synth pads, a bouncy beat, and a faux-Bowie singing something about how if you don’t do this or that “this horse won’t go”.
That song had me smiling as I turned left onto Albina en route to the best coffee shop in the world (along with the other one). Amazingly, the next track was almost better. It’s called “Thegg” and it ‘s got this stomping motorik beat with layers on layers of propellant guitar riffs with dubby feedback skree going off in the background. I parked the car and sat there like a dork waiting for the song to end. Some hip girls walked by and I triend to look busy with the cellphone, as opposed to just weird. The pay-off was a section of long ‘n’ fuzzy one-note riffage, closing out with some Make Up-syle boogieloo. It was worth it.
The opening phrase “nigger is the woman of the world” (thank you, John Lennon) is confrontational and seems to imply more “meaning” than the rest of the mumbled jumble-talk on this track. I’d call that phrase the only thing marring an otherwise perfectly blank jam out. I’m all for feminism in music, but back it up like John-o did if you’re going to throw those words out there, because they’re loaded. Maybe I should just listen to the lyrics harder but that doesn’t seem like the point here.
All in all tho, two great incoherent art-rock messes. Everything else I’ve heard off the album has fallen flat in comparison; the next song starts out with the lyrics “Get high / Get stupid / Get AIDS” and that’s just… stupid.
