WIPPY BONSTACK'S DATALAND

Sorry but i can't stop from thinking about the classic Allman Brothers song "Whippin' Post" when i try to say the name of this artist! Ha! WIPPY BONSTACK may sound like a whipped Jack who climbed a beanstalk and ended up in some giant's living room and to be honest i have no friggin idea where this moniker came from but in the world of prog, especially avant-garde anything friggin goes prog, i say - who friggin cares!!!!

OK, this project is one more in the ever-expanding career of the talented whippersnapper named Ben Coniguliaro of Sun Colored Chair, Wyxz and In-Dreamview fame. Well, fame within the world of demented prog lovers that is! Yeah, this guy has the chops, has the curiosity of what came before and how to apply it to today's fusionary standards. He is also one of the youngest artists working in the prog realm at the moment and it's cool to hear some newer talent keeping the torch burning for some of prog's greatest heroes who are no longer with us.

Whatever the case, ole Ben boy really is talented and knows how to take prog history and delivery it in a sort of "Name That Tune" sorta way! No he's not a plagiarist but rather deftly re-interprets styles of yore and crafts them in a completely different way. He has a knack for the avant-prog angularities of the most technically minded artists ranging from Zappa to the Canterbury gymnastics of Hatfield & the North but also keeps things a bit more contemporary but offering math rock, indie rock and art pop in his smorgasbord du jour.

Brand spankin' new off the digital press is WIPPY's debut release titled WIPPY BONSTACK'S DATALAND and it is chock filled with proggy yumminess so eclectic that you simply have to contain yourself since this is like the prog equivalent of Everclear and you just might get drunk! So this is basically a one man project with WIPPY BONSTACK playing electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, bass, piano, vocals, keyboards, analog synth, glockenspiel, melodica, marimba, vibraphone, percussion. The name of the game here is that the instrumental parts blow you away but unfortunately the vocals need a bit more work for my tastes.

This is a looooong album. Almost 69 minutes worth of jittery prog workouts mostly guitar based and primarily engaging in spastic Zappa-esque avant-prog and jazzy Canterbury nerdiness. Yeah, this is only for proggers who REALLY love things to enter the Freakazoid Zone but hey, who else has the gonads to just let their freak flag fly these days? Seems to many are just trying to woo the lowest common denominator. Thank the prog gods for the WIPPYs out there who just do what they want and let the chips fall where they will. Granted this is not the newest prog masterpiece or even some revolutionary fusion of styles that will become popular in 40 years after everyone "gets it."

No, this is just fun prog where a prog musician simply does what he wants and displays all his strengths and warts in a single listening experience. It seems there are a lot of one-man bands out there but they tend to exist in the metal world whether they be neoclassical virtuoso guitarists or black metal introverts. Prog one-man bands seem to be more of a rarity although many such gifted artists decorate themselves with supporting musicians. This album features 13 tracks, each stacked with heavy duty prog workouts however it also has some vocal oriented tracks such as one of my least favorites on "S.l.R." Yeah, WIPPY has mastered the art of instrumentation but the vocal tracks don't appeal to my sensibilities.

All in all this is a fascinating debut! WIPPY really has done his diligence in bringing the past prog splendor to the modern world. His guitar antics are exceptional and the compositions are brilliantly composed. This is probably one of the best examples that i've heard where avant-prog angularities and Canterbury jazz commingle flawlessly. Unfortunately i just can't get past the vocal parts which are awful! For some reason this album makes me think of Ween's "The Pod" which was a mix of genius and not so greatness. For a debut album i'm impressed but i would've really preferred if this was instrumental in all honesty. Go WIPPY!

3.5 but i'll round up for the freak factor!

Ben Coniguliaro, the man behind Wippy Bonstack, is no stranger in the world of math rock, having already made a name for himself since 2016 as a contributor and member of the experimental indie rock duo Mud Moths, the heavy brutal prog group Wyxz and various math rock formations such as In-Dreamview and Sun Colored Chair. Wippy Bonstack's Dataland, his first solo album released under his current alias, combines elements of all of these projects and more and succeeds in being his most beautiful and diverse work thus far. While the album remains mostly grounded in math rock's indie-based timbre its influences are obviously more eclectic, even though listening to any single song on its own might not necessarily give it away. The opening "Multi Mystery Knot" is probably one's best bet for a quintessential track on this album, serving more or less as a multi-part overture that features a number of melodies that are restated in later tracks, a variety of moods and stellar instrumental performances on guitar, piano and marimba, Coniguliaro's lead instruments of choice.

However, you'd do yourself a great service listening to what comes afterwards too, because the album's main quirk doesn't become apparent until the second track, "Wippy's Headwound", which starts off as a highly off-kilter and freaked out distorted organ toccata before its surprisingly effective catharsis turns out to be its transformation into a comparatively normal but undeniably catchy guitar-led rock song (with a cute little bossa nova section near the end). Most of the vocal tracks on the album follow a similar formula, seamlessly switching between catchy choruses and complex, ever changing instrumental sections, ending up with music that is somehow simultaneously progressive and complicated, and yet instantly memorable and easily enjoyable.

Leave it to Coniguliaro for example to bookend a slowcore anthem with a labyrinthine Zappa-ish piano rock section full of multiplying tuplets and changing meters ("Day Fluke", "Goodbye Evil"), have a pop punk shuffle be constantly interrupted by quintuplets ("Stigma Sauce"), or, on the closing "You Might Win", intersperse a heavy prog section with gratuitous bass slapping into a moody minor-key strummed guitar song before fading it out with the same melancholic G-major coda as the opening track. Even the songs that aren't as multifaceted, such as the short jazzy instrumental "Yield 'N' Pan", the mildly grungey "Spazz O'Clock", the folkish "Nimble Knot" and the lovely Wyatty pop song "Puzzle Pieces" are all a joy to hear, and add all the more to this amazing journey through a loving marriage of the accessible and the weird. Highly recommended for fans of Bubblemath, Cardiacs or Mike Keneally.