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Cartoon - Music From Left Field CD (album) cover

MUSIC FROM LEFT FIELD

Cartoon

 

RIO/Avant-Prog

4.16 | 20 ratings

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Atavachron
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
4 stars A slight departure from their first release and a determined progression forward, American avant- garders Cartoon slam their fist onto the prog table with 'Music From Left Field', their aptly-titled second album from 1983. Craig Fry (violin), Herb Diamant (woodwinds), the tin foil drums of Gary Parra, Mark Innocenti's dirty guitar and Scott Brazieal's unhinged piano devour the 15-minute opener 'Quotes', setting this album's frantic tone. A piece that on its own could satisfy any prog gourmet, full of continual variance, gutted melodies, decompositions, clattering street noise, orchestral tunings, Scott Joplin ragtime, John Lennon, Bartok, the Twilight Zone, children's lullabys and creepy cartoon themes. As if that weren't enough to satisfy, 'Bedlam' follows and calms things a bit to let us digest before it goes down a troubled path of dissonance and manic fever. Cartoon's music is both indefinable and deeply disturbed, splitting apart at any opportunity like a crazed man running off half-naked into the street, chased by the screaming harpies in his head. 'Light in August' keeps up the urgency and demented pace, and 'Scherzo' is a tortured soul wanting out of a madhouse that may or may not exist in a world of carousels that go too fast and clowns that smell bad... this is a place for neither children nor adults but no matter how hard you try, you can't find your way out. There are animals too, moustached vendors, dwarfs, geeks, slow children at play, small men in hats and fat women in wigs, all attending this freakshow of an album. Fever-pitched, not for the faint hearted, smashing good stuff.

Atavachron | 4/5 |

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