ANOMALY

McLuhan was more than your basic run-of-the-mill band playing experimental rock music. Perhaps the best way of describing them is to call them a multi media art group that just so happened to play music. The idea behind came swooping through head honcho David Wright's head one particularly inspired day, and it was to interweave the music performance with movie segments, weird noises like a toddler crying, frenetic whistles, a spoken anecdote about Henry Ford, machinery tinkering and all kinds of experimental sounds that must come from somewhere, but where that exactly is, is beyond this already rather loopy listener. This McLuhan vision of Wright's, while somewhat sketchy and let's face it: seen before, still managed to crystallize at the University of Illinois Chicago, where friend and fellow student Paul Cohn (sax, flute, clarinet) and his former band mates joined the group.

Focusing strictly on the music and you get this warm seductive jazz rock that flirts around with a distinct early European psychedelic sound - either that or that of the more swampy and immeasurable acts from the late 60s San Franciscan scene. Anyway, the music is anything but what you'd call "jazzy" - the jazz note comes strictly from the reeds and the, at times, ch-chii-ch drumming. There's so much more to the music, and what you find in stead of a typical fusion album, is a wild concoction of wobbly frenzied psych-drenched jams, soulful yearning blues moments of burning guitar and bleeding vocals and something akin to kosmische musik brought straight over from the German heartland.

Then you get to the ever oscillating beauty of the organs and piano - oh my word and what about the mystic touches of timpani and chimes that give to the pieces that little bit of the delirious and dreamy. Something that blurs your view in gelatinous mass and treats your surroundings and the music you listen to with a glistening sheen. Makes it shine.

The final touches to an otherwise extremely tasty dish, are the brass booms - the Chicago whiff - the thing that makes you go "SLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE ON BABY!!" while you rhythmically jive on down the street walk with a cat like bounce in your step. This is the shizzle right here! Just remember to include a little xylophone in your shake and everything'll be right as rain...OH they did did they? Why sure, of course you get a little xylophone in the mix. Why wouldn't you?

Fact of the matter is, that you don't need all the fancy trickery surrounding this release. It stands proudly on it's own. The feel and warmth of the jam is just so damn intense and contagious, that you forget everything about it needing some cinematic backdrop. The cinematic backdrop IS there though - that's how good these guys are!

Get this baby for it's seductive charm - get it while it's hot - get it because you love music and you love to dance like you did back when you snuck in at The Doors gigs and had a weird belt in your hair - get it while you can - get it because I said so, and most importantly: because it makes a certain time and place real, if only for a short while. This is the real McCoy.

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