Implosion Quintet - The Future Sound of Yesterday

  by Robert Fisher

published: 23 / 7 / 2009

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Review

There is a second hand flea and farmer’s market here in the valley that has been in operation for years at the dusty edge of our little suburban desert oasis. Every weekend vendors roll in and display wares ranging from shiny new tools, bootleg t-shirts and paraphernalia to old construction salvage. They set up stalls, folding tables or just a sheet on the ground selling nearly new tires, handmade furniture, fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts, herbs, spices or big speaker enclosures that will turn any urban warrior’s car into a rolling disco. It’s the sort of flotsam that flows from everyone’s storage shed. Mixed in among the stalls are stands selling tacos, tamales and burritos with jalapeno peppers and cut vegetables in a hot oil marinade on the side. all washed down with a pink lemonade or ice cold Corona. Live bands play mariachi music, Tex-Mex rock from the border and oldies mixed in with classic rock on a make shift bandstand. Families listen and cowboys use their hats for fans in the 100-degree heat. It’s a lot like any number of markets of a similar kind anywhere in the world where chaos and disorder are woven into a tapestry of sight and sound as beautiful as any in a museum. Implosion Quintet has released a recording that comes very close to being the aural equivalent. A mostly instrumental record that uses voices rarely, 'The Future Sound of Yesterday' is a kaleidoscope of sounds and influences seemingly beamed into the speakers like some magnificent short wave radio broadcast that has been cross-pollinated by various popular music forms as it wanders the globe. The music here is credited to the efforts of one James Baker, a British musician living in Norway, and a handful of collaborators. Fringe elements of eastern pop influences, sideways lounge jazz, contemplative burblings from synthesizers, grandiose pop string movements and thick and chunky seventies garage rock are all thickly layered and infused with a cut and paste sensibility that borrows freely from the world that surrounds us. This is the work of a very talented collage artist who has learned to synthesize the musical elements of his world into a pastiche that seems fully formed and delivered from another place and time. The Future Sound of Yesterday indeed.

Track Listing:-

1 Now, this won't hurt a bit...
2 Skeleton crew
3 Bone sideways
4 We fight the swan
5 Nuve creep
6 There's a dog in my head
7 Inca logic
8 The Ghosting
9 This is fucking ART
10 Think of me when you detonate, darling
11 Your money's no good here
12 The Duchess of Start and the Duke of Stop
13 Blackout
14 Up the duff