You can't get much cheekier (or cheesier)-and get away with it-than Marc Ribot and the two guys that round out this New York trio know as Ceramic Dog. "Tudo El Mundo Es Kitsch," which features guest vocalist Janis Cruz, is kind of a signature tune of the outing, with its endearing, though chill, deliberate self-mockery that is the legacy of the age of advertising that causes the self-protective reaction of ironic detachment — "cool," in a word. But ironic felicity fills nearly every tune here, reflected in the titles, like the frolicking "When We Were Young and We Were Freaks," the Rimbaud-inflected aesthetically pleasing dreaminess of "Bateau" and of course the album title itself, whose eponymous cut sounds like a cross between something like Devo and Funkadelic, with the ghost of Jimi Hendrix appearing from time to time, and there is, of course, the ironic pun built into the phrase.
But the album's opener is most revealing of all — the Doors' "Break on Through," which sets up the thematic furniture: Ribot's geeky, yet very skilled guitar and zany but hip vocals and the multi-instrumentalisms of Ribot's party-animal side kicks Ches Smith (drums, percussion, electronics, vocals) and Shahzad Ismaily (bass vocals and moog). While it pivots and preens like the crown prince of self-conscious consumer culture, the trio digs into some meaty satire and some musically sublime moments that help one transcend the madness to attain a Zen-like balance, a yin-yang reconciliation — "peace," in a word.
"Digital Handshake" recalls the heady times of early electronics in pop music, when a whole new sound was introduced via the synthesizer, and electronics color the album, either in the actual use of them as instrumental lines, or the texturing of the vocals in several cuts. These are artistically articulate electronics, not your over-produced pop pabulum, and while the band has pop-references, they produce music that is motivated by eclectic expressionism, even with the rock punchiness of tunes like "Party Intellectuals" and "Never Better." And along with "cool" and "peace", there is "love" in pieces like the Latin-inspired "For Malena" (whose lyrics lay out a whole other, fresh spin on the style) and the anti-relationship sarcasm of "Girlfriend."
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