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Wippy Bonstack - Wippy Bonstack's Dataland CD (album) cover

WIPPY BONSTACK'S DATALAND

Wippy Bonstack

 

Eclectic Prog

4.32 | 18 ratings

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Mirakaze
Special Collaborator
Eclectic Prog & JR/F/Canterbury Teams
5 stars 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.

Mirakaze | 5/5 |

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