Personally, I find it great when I go into a project with no expectations, hear the first song and I can either take in what I hear at first and feel comfortable, or hate the fact I have to endure crap. In the case of this album by Holobody, it is very much the former, and I’m expecting to hear a bit of electronic pop music with some interesting sampled textures, fronted with a male voice. It’s dreamy and sounds like someone unfolding an envelope and revealing more envelopes. With the second song, the guy starts to rap and touches on “false prophets” and I’m thinking oh, what’s this now? Female vocals kick in. Third song, I’m hearing a beat that could’ve been something given by Pharrell Williams as it’s sparse and makes you want to say “grinding!”, but then the lady hauntingly things. Fourth song, there’s a bit of human beat box mixed in with an acoustic guitar, and the guy talks about taking his body to the riverside so he can join the stream. At this point, I’m thinking this is as varied as my own dreams, but it’s the kind of dreams that one wants to experience in an awaken state.
The influences sound like what happened when underground/indie/alternative bands in the 90′s felt okay to share their influences on everything from hip-hop to folk ballads, all without fear. Riverhood (Mush) is what happens when a brother and sister say “hey, let’s make music together. In this case, it’s Felix Green and Sea Oleena, and even when you want to point the finger at them and say “a HA!, now I get what you’re doing”, a few minutes later they twist up the components of their songs and you want to scratch your head. You do so not in disbelief, but in a bit of amazement, because as varied as it is, you accept it for its differences and while you may want to find a point of cohesion, you don’t want to do it just yet. Or at least I didn’t want to. As for the lyrics, when you hear a line such as: I was sitting in the bathtub counting my toes / When the radiator broke, the water all froze / I was stuck in the ice without my clothes / Naked as the eyes of a clown / I was crying ice cubes hoping I’d croak / When the sun came through the window and the ice all broke / I stood up and laughed, I thought it was a joke / That’s the way that the world goes round - you wonder if this is just a bunch of trippy dreams, lofty fairy tales, or just something cool to write and say just for the hell of it? Again, you don’t want to get too deep into the meaning, maybe it’s meant to be nothing but “on the surface. Nonetheless, it can be considered “experimental” in the sense that everything sounds disconnected but then you realize that it is Holobody themselves that bring it together. This is that bowl of macaroni & cheese that you’ve desired after years of eating that boxed junk your mom has made for you for years. This is the good cheese. - This Is Book's Music |
