MIKE KENEALLY

Transatlantic (the Neal Morse band) is the nearest comparison I can think of for Wing Beat Fantastic: low-to-moderately energetic songs, mainly guitar-based but with some low-key piano and sufficient harmonic and rhythmic surprises to keep the attentive listener interested. The inattentive listener will find a smooth, pleasant background for their party, housework, etc.

This album is my introduction to Mike Keneally, so I come to this review with but one preconception: my sister texted me from her local record shop with, "They played something that sounded kind of folky and proggy, so I got a copy for you, and one for myself." (I love my sister. Music industry accountants love her too.)

Andy Partridge I remember from XTC in the early-'80s. I've not heard any of his work since then, but I heard that XTC went pastoral. Since there's no lack of pastoral moments on Wing Beat Fantastic, I can putatively attribute those to Mr Partridge's influence.

The album flows well, with short instrumental segues between songs - with one notable exception. Both times I've played this CD, I've been in the flow of the music and then - silence. Both times i looked up to find the CD had finished playing. There's no gesture to close the album. It simply stops. it jars me out of the comfortable mood into which it lulled me.

It's a pleasant listen, and a couple of orders of magnitude more interesting than anything at the top of the commercial charts. It doesn't interest me enough, though, to plow through the accompanying booklet with its brown-on-brown, small-print credits to find out who did what with what. I'll play it again for background music when I have visitors or when I'm pottering around the house, but not for active listening.

I can't believe how unpredictably talented Mike Keneally truly is. There is no music this man cannot beautify, and, in this case, extend to galactic proportions. If you are even remotely a fan of XTC, Andy Partridge, the Beatles or Mike Keneally, this album can be the happiest musical INFECTION you have had in years.

Moments in this album, I am thinking, "this is the XTC album I was waiting for...", then you start thinking, "this is XTC 2.0", followed by "my God, Mike Keneally loves XTC more than I do... is that possible?". You have to double check the credits to make sure Colin Moulding isn't singing in the background. The way Mike has recreated the XTC harmony/production values are incredible. A couple of times you think you are listening to the guitar and singing of Andy Partridge (he is responsible for the co-writing and a few drum loops-which, needless to say, are exquisite).

OF IMPORTANT NOTE! This album will NOT sink in with one listen. This is the most important part about listening to ANY Mike Keneally venture (except maybe "Dog"). The first reaction is that the first half of the album is the best and only part, HOWEVER a real serious uninterrupted focused listen to the latter half of the album reveals something so deep and lyrical it becomes more infectious than the first half. The second half of the album is like a musical dreamscape washed in a haze of atmosphere with hidden complex melodies that stick like glue.

In my opinion, this album makes up for the slightly spotty nature of Scambot 1. If that album left you a little cold, this one will make you fall in love with Keneally all over again.

After Scambot 1, which revealed us a record where composition was mainly an extension of improvisations, Mike Keneally offers, this time, an album of what we usually understand as songs. We know in advance that this record is a collaboration with Andy Partridge, one that was schedule since 1988, back in the days of Frank Zappa's last tour. We can understand the fascination that XTC could have had on Mike's taste and more so the opportunity to work on that vein. Knowing the subsequent output of Mike's career, we sense that XTC melodic sensitivity is somewhat sprinkled across almost all of the albuns that Mike recorded, along with the snippets of prog-rock ranging from Gentle Giant and Frank Zappa to Soft Machine, or John Scofield's jazz-rock albuns or Radiohead's vocal work. Although we can somehow identify all this references, what is extraordinary and makes him one of the most original voices in music today (not only in rock, i would say) is the ability of Mike Keneally to transform all the music that he touches into something really important and profound. It is as if all music is instantly filtered and put into a universe where nothing is casual, where all vocals and guitars are carefully layered, and compositions are rarely what they appear at first audition. Just like what we normally expect from a true artist and not only a musician. Mike surely learnt surprise and eyebrows with Frank Zappa even if he is more and more sounding in the antipodes of the latter. Wing Beat Fantastic, the album, opens with one of the three instrumentals that Mike placed across the record and serve as chambers to the "actual" songs, but also as if he wanted to give us a hint at the relaxed and intimate atmospheres of "Wooden Smoke" - his "acoustic" record. Once established this sort of low profile, Mike can carry on to his main goal - the songs he crafted with Andy. "It's Raining Here Inside" is the more straight forward song of the record but already gives us an "inside" of things - a place where rain creeps in, a paradox that will be developed later. Exactly like in "Hallmark" from the last album, the song is simple, with an unusual choice of chords, the sort of thing that would never happen in a conventional pop musician, Mike gives us a beautifully played guitar and solo, with a nice arrangement of voices in the last verse that remembers of the lush harmonies that could come out of a XTC album. When we arrive at "Wing Beat Fantastic" we begin to enter in the paradox. A simple fantastic beat is dressed with a beautiful melody. Voices and guitars (acoustic and electric) weave a fabric with nice contrasts, it is an absolutely marvelous piece. One of my favorites. The main melody can put you singing all day. Segue the second instrumental, the second part of "The Ineffable Oomph of Everything". This one is shorter and shows us again his excellent playing. "You Kill Me" starts with a sort of Gentle Giant melody that will be re-enacted throughout the song with a Zappaesque sensitivity. The record develops now a more extrovert side. The music is still relaxed but the lyrics are more political and it is here that i find that Mike could have been more radical and go deeper, mainly in terms of interaction of the players. I miss Brian Beller's interactions and dynamics. "Friend of a Friend" is once again an instrumental that opens us the phase III of the record. It starts with "That's Why I Have No Name". A strange melody that extends the inside/outside lyrical dynamic. The musical adventure on this one seems to border Radiohead's open atmospheres, or is it Robert Wyatt's ambiguous universe creeping? "Your House" is simply beautiful. The more i hear the more i fall in love with the song. Once again, the in/out paradox is stated, but this time the song and melody is emptied out of any ambiguity, in line with the unequivocal "your house" repeated on the lyrics. The line "I've got the number from a friend of a friend of a friend" is simply gorgeous musically and lyrically. The voices perfectly recorded, the harmonies are built slowly and carefully. Somehow, i feel the same placid intensity of some Hammill records: "silent corner and empty stage" or "chameleon in the shadow of the night", even if the voice couldn't be more different. Phase III continues with "Miracle Woman and Man" - the paradox widens and becomes more complex. The man and woman theme mirrors the strange arrangement that seems to glide from genre to genre as if it was someone dressing and undressing strange clothes, unsure of his sexual inclination. (Sorry about this one MIke?) "Inglow" is and extended instrumental with Mike playing tablas beautifully. It is here that we get to feel the "Wooden Smoke" atmosphere that was presented to us on those initial tokens. Like "Your House", the ambiguity vanishes and we get a sense of the INside - as the title indicates. On "Bobeau" I have the same feeling as with "You Kill Me" in terms of dynamic. I miss Brian Beller's dynamics and interaction. Minneman's beautiful playing is sort of alone on the different, gorgeous an complex parts of the song. Think I will wait for the Live version on this one, but then i will miss the beautiful arrangement of the trombones. I think we can't have the cake and eat it too. As if to reinforce this feeling, Mike finishes the song with an inspired and (unfortunately) bobbing in and out of water short guitar solo. "Land" is simply amazing. Guitars and voices entwine as if the paradox could be resolved finally in this land. But i think we dare not say or think so. Mike will take us to a new voyage soon. All this said, I give this one a 4 star. It is a beautiful record, but i miss the interaction a bit and the lack of improvised stuff that Keneally normally gives us. Otherwise it is simply gorgeous in composition, arrangement and playing.

Dense, dynamic and diverse is Mike Keneally's 'Scambot 1.' The usual high standard of recording quality frames rhythmic, subtle fireworks that detonate in combination with melodic color and texture changes. Different instruments cue up unexpectedly, with beauty in the timing of their arrival: The entrance of the guitar during the drum solo on 'The Quiet Children' is just one example. 'Gita' is an instrumental that exemplifies all of the above. The scope of the singing is broad in style and range, with some keen harmonies. The actual compact disc resembles a relic from Angkor Wat, and is accompanied by a 20- page booklet relating the story of Ian McPlant (a.k.a. Scambot) in tandem with lyrics and individual song credits. The plot of this narrative is propelled by evil industrialist Boleous T. Ophunji's "passion to manipulate and control mass consciousness," and Scambot's hapless place as an unsuspecting victim. Chase scenes, dream sequences, betrayal and free drinks are elements of the tale. 'Scambot 1' is "dedicated to anyone who still listens to entire albums with their headphones on." Repeated listens with the volume up support this dedication/recommendation. I give it 4 stars.

An album of lighter, mostly acoustic music from Mike Keneally? It sounds boring, doesn't it? Wrong!

This album is as good as any (mostly) acoustic I've heard. Keneally has a way of making just about any type of music echo his zany sense of humor, and Zappa-like sense of composition. It's a perfect album for listening to out on the back porch on a lazy summer night. Or just about any time for that matter.

If you can find a copy, look for the special edition version of the CD (unfortunately, it's not available at Keneally's web site these days). It has eighteen more track of Keneallified acousticment, all in a similar style of the standard version.

Mike Keneally's third album is a step down from his first two albums. The music is still remarkable, and often reminiscent of the great Frank Zappa, but what is missing is that feeling of inspired insanity that permeated Hat and Boil That Dust Speck. That doesn't make it a bad album. It is still a Mike Keneally album, and therefore full of astounding music.

The first part of the album starts out schizophrenically, alternating between inventive guitar driven rock, Potato (a very funny song), Why Am I Your Guy? and Frozen Beef (Come With Me, and more off-the-wall Zappa-like songs, the great I, Drum Running, Am Clapboard Bound and Looking For Nina. The album then settles into a smoother set of songs, the quirky but fun Tranquillado, a strangely compelling Chatfield Manor (sort of giving directions to Keneally's friend's house, all the way to the best song on the album, the gloriously RIO Egg Zooming.

Strangely enough, the worst song on the album (but not really terrible, just out of place) is the final track, the title piece, Sluggo, a honky tonk piano solo. If you think ELP's honky tonk didn't fit their albums, you ain't heard nothin' yet.

Mike Keneally's fourth studio album is a true solo album. Keneally was responsible for every sound on the album. And what an album it is. Sporting thirty five tracks of instrumental brilliance, this album is the most RIO of any of Keneally's work.

The songs are mostly short pieces, based on ideas and experiments invented by Keneally and his producer, Scott Chatfield. Some of the music comes from Keneally's work on soundtracks for Court TV shows.

Musically, this is Keneally's most Zappa-like work. His compositional style shows a heavy influence from Frank's orchestral and instrumental works, while also giving way to Keneally's own whimsical style. Fan's of FZ should not miss this album.

My copy has the Nonkertalk bonus disk, where Keneally and Chatfield talk, track by track, about what this album is about, and how many of the songs were made.

I'm honoured to be the first person to give this record a review. I'll give a 4.2 star, overall (4). The music of this record is as different from any other Mike Keneally record, yet, we always feel the same invention, the same melodic inspiration, the same excelent playing. Wooden Smoke, as the title indicates is a sort of acoustic record. Like "Song From the Wood" of Jethro Tull. The first theme is an harmonious arpeggio of guitars that leads into this record that echoes also "Trespass" of Genesis. I'd never heard anything more similar than this. If you're a fan of Genesis of the Peter Gabriel you'll love this. Mike Keneally piano playing is absolutely breathtaking in this well recorded album. Sounds of Soft Machine harmonies from "Soft's" or "Bundles" echo in the walls of our memories. "2001" is an almost pop song, the chorus is reminiscent of Beach Boys harmonies, but the playing is much mroe relaxed. There's a good, even if not enthusiastic, atmosphere. The little guitar solo is so sparse and shy that we almost don't recognize Keneally. "New England" is an excelent instrumental, only with acoustic guitars and bass. With "Nanny-Ass Crow" we arrive at the "normal" Keneally world. It starts with a Gentle Giant kind of melody and the some great singing with doubling voices over an arrangement of saxophones, absolutely beautiful. "Dee 'n' A" starts on the acoustic guitar with a nice riff and a double recording of guitars until they are replaced by some background percussion with piano. Mike Keneally extends is feelings here. We feel as if the record is achieving its main goal. The ideas flow one after the other with musicality, nothing seems forced. Looped guitar leads then into the long guitar solo where we can hear the band leading Keneally into a controled frenzy (as Zappa would say). "Boom" is just a little melody with piano and nice vocals with a frog background. "5 legs" feels like Zappa from "200 Motels" enters the record to make more theatrical, the sung/talked melody makes it vibrate, although the acoustic guitars and slide makes us feel more at easy. On "Father's Day" Mike achieves a level of lyricism with his guitar solo and the basic riff that makes us think of the more harsh arrangements nad more dramatic movements. "Pantomime" is one of my favourite pieces of this beautiful recording, Piano and acoustic guitar. Keneally overdubbing, sounding Gentle Giant alone. The real Gentle Giant. "Machupicchu" is a kind of low profile song that is song common on Keneally catalogue. It looks the music is nothing, but as we listen closely we are instantly atracted to this sensitive way of composing. On "Wooden Smoke" it looks like Mike is trying to get us to understand that his record "it meant that they could give his best - but that was what was needed". It is an astonishing record. An excellent addition to any prog rock collection.

While this is not a masterpiece like his first two albums, this Mike Keneally release certainly provides enough entertainment at many levels to make it worth hunting down.

Keneally has honed his style down, creating an album that, while more coherent (his early releases jumped maniacally from genre to genre, sometimes at lightning speed), manages to touch enough different styles, and include enough Zappa references, to satisfy this hungry progger.

Some of the high points to me are Pretty Enough For Girls, Taster and Brown Triangles, all with their share of the Zappa sound (Frank himself might have played the guitar solo on Taster, it's so good). But the best song is the frenzied Lhai Sal. A worthy song for any prog fan.

There are a few stinkers on this album. The opener, Live In Japan, based on a weak pun, is too mainstream, and Joe and Only Mondays, are just too light. And often, Keneally's free-form melodic style makes too many songs sound the same.

My copy has the bonus disk, Dancing With Myself, a live recording, two thirds of it has Keneally playing mostly songs from Dancing on solo guitar or piano, and the last third is the full band playing, with Keneally on a mostly effect-free guitar. It's nice, but I wouldn't say essential.

If there's a music today (2010) that makes me write and say everything about music is Mike Keneally. So this deserves a 4,6 stars which makes it a 5. This is a music appreciation. The Scambot story is ignored for now.

It all starts with a cooking recipe in a tv show. We hear the melody of "Life's Too Small" in background, played by a relaxed saxophone. And then, music from the 60's with "Scambot". Ophunji's Theme shows us the beautiful atmosphere of the record. Choirs alternate with big guitar solos with jazzy backgrounds. Then we have "Hallmark", the single, which I love, beautiful playing of piano and acoustic bass by keneally, beller, reminding us of their joining forces alive. The choirs join forces when the dinosssaurs do the same, it looks like Tears for Fears met Gentle Giant or that Radiohead like harmonies got a pump rhythm. :) Beatles comes to mind but this we'll be most straight-mainstream effort of the record, this is no last hurrah, it is just another melodic somewhat serious and jazzy tune with some flutes and saxophones in the end to make it a bit more problematic for future cover versions. "Chee" features some musicians from netherlands on a jazzy tune with Gentle Giant synths. The 3/4 feeling makes it almost Carla Bleyish. The playings is marvellous, there are sax, guitar solos. The violin appears, we have a feeling of Zappa's "Hot Rats", and we come back to beautiful melody of the theme. It is a very unusual kind of theme in Keneally reportoire. Segue with "Tomorrow" a Zappaesque hard rock riff with unison vocals "yes i will try harder..." with odd time signatures, electronic drums and beautiful singing by Keneally as always. 1.57 of pure delight. "Cat Bram Sammich part 1" and "2" sandwich "You Named Me". Both ends of the bread are just monstruous clock work recordings of vocals, with different parts, diffrente atmospheres that put the ususal song singing mainstream kind of music with chorus etc, to shame. We're on a different realm here, this is just story telling with pitches. "You Named Me" is a written guitar solo interwined with some vocal chords beautiful recorded. Keneally pushes not only assumes his progressive vein, he blasts all our conceptions of rock music, creating a world where improvisation begins the composing mode. How much of this stuff is improvised and then fixed in "actual" melodies? "Saturate" returns to the "normal songs" feeling. Even if we feel the song is on the brink of collapsing. The odd time signature makes it limp until the final coda that could come out of a 70's recording of Frank Zappa. "M" just takes us again somewhere with acoustic guitars and marching drums before we enter in the "country & western" "Cold Hands". It is as crazy as Keneally could make it without losing the cowboy feeling. The recording of bass and drums are excelent, the voices are superb. Beautiful song. "We Are the Quiet Children" returns to the hard written stuff that looks improvised in its essence but only before we notice the unisons and perfect balance of the drums/guitar/bass alternation. Here Keneally gets to the core of progressive music. It is hard to listen to, nobody can expect to enter this music on one hearing, but that is not, at all, the aim of this type of music. I think Keneally is reaching for something more open, improvised material that can reach places unthought of. The excelent technic of all the players makes it possible. At 5.10 both drums and guitar reach a controled climax, but without losing the temper. At 7.00 there's another amazing/impossible guitar part as the drums clatter, atfer which everything joins for a "easy" guitar melody that leads us to "Foam". The latter is a sort of chill out kind of rhythm with some open chords and guitar crying. Segue "The Brink" with Keneally playing drums and recorder. Zappa melodies come to our heads as the theme finishes, When we arrive "Life's Too Small" we hear the melody that opened the record. It is as if the record is ending. As the song melts into the acoustic guitars arpeggios and saxophone adlibs we wonder where we went and delight in pure bliss with the hramonics and the electric guitar solo that Keneally launches at 3.00. Gentle Giant voices arrive at 4.30, beautifully harmonized. Rock riffs alternate, it is an amazing tune, just like the title states, life's too small. "Behind the Door" reinforces the feeling that this is something outside the record. It is as if we are already in another world. Different from Scambot, the voices are pitch altered, the musical landscape is falling apart or, more plausible, is gathering all the sounds it can to continue the journey - i think it is the second alternative. Again we think of Radiohead kind of loops with strange melodies and sounds hovering. "Gita" is the great effort of Mike Keneally. We could take a whole review just to analize this tune. Is a intricate written piece, again with the feeling that its core comes from improvised stuff. The different instruments used makes it a gigantic symphonic progressive work. I'm listening this record for almost 3 months and Istill didin't get to halfd of what is produced here. Absolutely breathtaking! "Da Dun Da" looks like it is a left over of "Wooden Somke" or something like that. Beautiful acoustic guitar playing amazingly recorded. Nice vocals, an excelent end to the record. It is an amazing progressive album. Mike Keneally stands, for me, as one of the most brilliant musicians of the XXI century. And he has so much to give us yet!