Misterlee - Bootlegger (This is Not a Lifestyle Sandwich)

  by Helen Tipping

published: 24 / 2 / 2007

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Review

Misterlee have recently released this bootleg CD of some of their live material, so they called it 'Bootlegger'. As well as containing audio, there are videos for your enjoyment. Then they gave it a second title 'Misterlee is Not a Lifestyle Sandwich'. It's an audio-visual rebellion against the latest marketing concept whereby everything has to have a brand. Yes folks, these days everyone and everything has to have a brand. You can have a sandwich to suit your lifestyle. Yeah, right. Like you want Mr Spin Doctor telling you what you should eat to suit your life, and, just as you don't want him doing that, you don't want him telling you what to listen to either. Well you can rest assured, he won't be telling you to listen to Misterlee - they just aren't pigeonholeable (is that a word? Do I care if it's not?) enough. So what do you get on your fantastic ECD? (That's CD Extra, like Tesco Extra. Sorry that was a lie. It's not. You actually do get extra on the CD.) The extra being video footage of the band from live shows and from radio broadcasts. The video material, as you might expect if you've ever listened to them before, isn't straightforward. It's been cut open and experimented on, just like their sounds. The video footage is put together with a menu to allow you to play it all, or pick and choose between the 7 videos, and nicely insults you by calling you a quitter when you quit. The audio side of things consists of 9 tracks recorded at various venues around the country, although some of the tracks are funny one-liners from the band. Given that Misterlee favour the lo-fi approach to recording, their style suits the media of the bootleg and these have been recorded by friends of the band. The CDE therefore carries a distortion alert guaranteeing distorted peaks and bonus hiss. I could have done with a stolen Bros lyric warning as well, but it was redeemed by the rest of 'Dim Lit' with its distorted dub reggae sounds. If you haven't heard Misterlee before you can be sure that each track will have a totally different style to it - experimental always, verging on jazz occasionally, usually funny live, but definitely not a lifestyle anything.

Track Listing:-

1 Shadowcast (live)
2 The Caligula Waltz (live)
3 Improvisation (from Lying Down) (live)
4 Dim Lit (live)
5 Beer Is The New Black (live)
6 Improvisation (from Shadowcast) (live)
7 Lying Down (live)