(home)
(review selection)
|
(home) |
 Baby Mammoth Motion without pain Pork |
There’s no greater way of
starting the new year than with a new release from pork recordings,
and this time its the turn of those placid purveyors of down-tempo
funk ‘Baby Mammoth’ to brighten up our lives with another
imaginative, expertly crafted record. ‘Motion without pain’—incredibly
their sixth full-length album, represents a further exploration into
the world of imaginative jazzy grooves heard in their last album ‘swimming’,
with the welcome reappearance of liquid-jazz guitarist Tom Harland
adding more delicious layers of subtle chordal melody upon the
Mammoths trademark head-nodding beats. ‘Danger on the Rocks’
purvades the senses with a dub-heavy bass line whilst ‘Ebb and
flow’ evokes the Mammoths subtle sense of humour, sampling
snatches of verbal surrealism over a typically mellow mammoth backing
track. Generally, this record has a more up-tempo feel to it than were
used to from previous albums; I was in a club when the DJ played ‘The
Ghost of Henry’ and the dancefloor went completely berzerk!
Indeed, other tracks here like ‘Elephunk’, ‘Tasty
Maloney’ and the spaced-out funk of ‘pigs in space’
aim straight for the feet, making my body jitter and shake
uncontrollably. I haven’t got Parkinson’s—it’s the Mammoth!
Every track here exudes a wonderful inventiveness and attention to
detail, which makes each new listen more rewarding than the last. You
have to be born without a soul not to enjoy this record, you know what
to do!
Steve
Hutchins |