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Belittle LeagueOh, I Fell Down Fluffy Delicious/Independent To really appreciate 'Oh, I Fell Down' you've got to see Belittle League live: one man - Morgan Read, to be precise - a synth, an iPod and a set of dance moves rarely seen outside of John Hughes' mid-80s teen films. You could be forgiven for thinking it's meant as a joke, but this is no Spod-style pisstake: there's a genuine heart to what the 'League do that belies the occasionally flippant song titles. The disc begins with the electro masterpiece Rock'n'Roll Ombudsman, in which Read beseeches the listener to "dance for once in your life", before the instrumental Rodders kicks in, driven by a loop of Rodney Dangerfield saying "Hey, while I'm up here, check my oil" (and your guess is as good as mine). Elsewhere Sgt Leper's Pony veers between electro and 'sixties British Invasion songcraft, The Wrong Way could be a more introspective Cut Copy ("I'm going to get down / I'm going to get down / From your roof"), while the more downbeat The One They're Getting Stoned For harkens back to Read's work in indie-art-rockers Canino and Parlour. However, at the risk of seeming like a killjoy, Doing The Robot seems an almost inappropriate choice: a burst of comedy in the middle of a record that otherwise keeps its face pretty straight. That said, it's a brilliant piece of work - an old-school Grandmaster Flash-style piece of hip-hop boasting a binary rap as its centrepiece ("one-one, zero-zero-one, zero-one-zero-one-one-one." Genius). And if that wasn't enough, he pulls off some impressive slap bass on the closing San Francisco Motor Home. He's astonishing live and this is a heck of a record. Don't let this eccentric Adelaide genius pass you by.  |
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