If you were to set "Tales Of The Unexpected" in a rock'n'roll context, then bizarre Australian trio GERLING would surely be supplying the soundtrack.
Beacuse, put simply, you do not have the faintest inkling what the soddin' hell Paul Towner, Darren Cross and Burke Reid are gonna do next. GERLING'S gigs have previously found the band grabbing kids by the hair and screaming in their faces and while they claim not to have set light to anyone/ thing yet,it must only be a matter of time. Somehow, I doubt I'd let them house sir for me: not unless I wanted to return to toga parties in the living room and people seling crack from the treehouse outside. That sort of scenario, at least.
And, make no mistake, their second album, "Headzcleaner" is one fucken strange record, full of twists, turns, hairpin bends and - occasionally - cul-de-sacs as the trio proceed to empty the contents of their minds all over your speakers. Fortunately - once you've aligned to the (in) sanity - a fair amount of this is pretty damn cool.
"Headzcleaner" features both trailer singles, "The Deer In You" and "Dust Me Selecta", but even their respective psych drone curveballs and curious DJ''n'vocoder disco grooves (respectively) barely prepare you for this oddball sensory overload.
There again, you should demand an album featuring outside help as disparate as KYLIE MINOGUE, KOOL KEITH and CORNELIUS to sound as exotic and arcane as this. Indeed KYLIE'S vocal on "G-House Project" (sorta like a cut-up sister to "Dust Me Selecta") is an undoubted high watermark and once again proves how open-minded the elfin one is to collaborations.
In my dog-eared book, it's not even the best thing here, either. For that accolade, check out "Fight Revolution Team", one of GERLING'S more, ah, linear efforts, with keen guitars, stutter-y rhythms and a soupcon of NEW ORDER-ish melancholy adding spice to the pot.
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It's great, also, to revisit the Krautrockin' bass undertow of "The Deer In You"once more, not to mention the curious, almost reggaefied lope of "Serpentheadz", although the album's other absolute tour de force is undoubtedly "Brother Keith On Destructor Mountain".Kool Keith allegedly took a whole year to add his collaborative vocal and it apparently required further judicious pruning from the band, but its' eventual surefooted skank evokes this writer's enthusiasm on discovering THE CLASH'S courage in working with FUTURA 2000 for "Overpowered By Funk."
Ineveitably for a record with such far-reaching horizons, some of "Headzcleaner" clatters into hurdles. The two-part "Windmills and Birdbaths" ping-pongs from what sounds like record players running too slow to some weird music box malarkey from SOLEX'S ELISABETH ESSELINK, while tracks like "Hot Computer" find GERLING aping KRAFTWERK'S shiny futurism badly and sounding inconseqential. Never the point here, surely.
Indeed, swallowed whole, "Headzcleaner"s ingredients include the sublime, the ridiculous and just about every station of the (Southern) cross in between. However, fellow antipodeans THE AVALANCHES were recently lauded for stitching together such a rich eiderdown of sound fuelled by a similar thirst for the unusual, so it would be crazy to knock GERLING for daring to be different.
Besides, the more I think of it, those toga parties in the living room sound cool. You up for a spot of house sitting on your next visit to Western shores, boys?
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