XiX is the latest album by Ex Stump bassist Kev Hopper, Stump were a band that intensely annoyed me back in the day for a variety of reasons, including playing gigs advertised as being by other bands, but I will do my best not to hold that against Kev thirty however many years later. He was also a member of Prescott and Ticklish as well as being a painter.
The album opens with the ambient plinky plonky Hopper Arts Theme that leads into Vector Prodder that has a synth xylophone feel, to the oddly compelling rhythm building with odd flourishes of spacey swooshes.
Gruntian Forbes is weird surrealist cartoon music, truly on the outer fringes, in places it threatens to go into Happy Talk, before the vocals come in to talk of economic collapse and other odd phenomena. Devils speak in a language stolen from early computer games, with ethereal cartoon interludes, deep rumbling vocals are set against angelic voices, in a glitchy descent into the bowels of hell, the Styx burbles away.
Not What has vocodered vocals in a squelchy minimalist bass driven backing, that has all sorts of odd twinges. Lance The Prawn is predicting all sorts of stuff in the glitchy miasma of his tank, bleeps and treated vocals slowed down to a robotic growl, muttering about Alex Douglas Hume getting himself in trouble again.
In The Murky Blue he tried he really did, to make a normal tune, but well that's not going to happen, so we get more bleeping and computer noises chilling our senses and taking us deep into the murk.
Vas Defenz takes us on a meander through an oddly empathetic cartoon chase, in a jungle of odd dimensions. Brand Street Psychodrama uses a variety of sound effects to conjure up a psychic breakdown where Lance The Prawn makes a slight return.
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Window Seat has a repeating keyboard motif and synth strings chilling us out, while we gaze at the passing countryside, horns drawing us deeper into the woods. Stumblepluck treats the strings like a harp rather than a guitar, with an odd ambience and dark tones underneath.
The album closes with the Cucurella Problem obviously about how to tame that Keeganesque mop of curls, hoping the ball doesn't bounce off it at odd angles, like the angelic vocals haunting this wonky tribute to the Spanish left back, I wonder what he'd make of this tune if he gets to hear it, will it be the brass section or the elastic stretchy noises that most remind him of crunching tackles.
Find out more at https://kevhopperdimplediscs.bandcamp.com/album/xix https://www.facebook.com/kevhoppermusic
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