Soul Coughing - El Oso
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CD Details
Artist: Soul CoughingEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1998-09-29
Music Label: Warner Bros / Wea
Soundtracks:
- Rolling
- Misinformed
- Circles
- Blame
- St. Louise Is Listening
- Maybe I'll Come Down
- Houston
- $300
- Fully Retractable
- Monster Man
- Pensacola
- I Miss The Girl
- So Far I Have Not Found The Science
- The Incumbent
Music reviews of El Oso
Music Review: There is NOTHING like Soul Coughing
Rating: 4 Stars
At their best these guys are like the a stripped down albeit trippier version of Morphine. On a scale of 1 to 10 I give this an 8. This album is for the 90's (IMHO!) as Modern English is for the 80's. Although Modern English had a hit.
ANYWHO, they played this really weird, syncopated (well-xenochronous to me to steal a Frank Zappa ismmm)clanky music that seemed to come through a flanger pedal effect (flanger is a guitar effect that makes the sound spin, but off axis)....House was coming down off of methadone. They played this while he shaved and got ready for a job interview. Only 15 seconds or so played, but I was immediately hooked (forgive the pun).
If I had to describe it (the song $300 from El Oso) I would say it was a bit like the trippy bits from the Aronofsky movie Pi stretched out a bit with lyrics that rhymed very very oddly. Drums'n'bass but with more melody and really really loud, clear drums. Hypnotic. Trippy. Jazzy (like John Zorn?). A bit atonal. But very listenable and compelling.
What a great name for a band, right? But I digress. I will put this on and describe it on this, the 3rd listen or so.
1: Rolling: Lots of VERY low bass, flatulent. Drums. Driving, reminiscent of Radio Head in the way mid-ground and background musical themes swirl and mutate as they progress. Lyrics, like good hip-hop drive forward with the drums. Synthesizer provides continuo.
2. Misinformed:More vocally driven. Good harmonizing but a bit boring. I am going to skip this one. Would be good party background music.
3.Circles:An out of tune guitar compels this song forward in spite of itself. Background music, again. Maybe drunk people would dance to this? Skipping now...
4.Blame-Very trippy jazzy light drums with swooping bass line. Great vocals, hard to get out of your head! Much like the theremin riff in the song "I go walking in the rain" but much much better. "Blame is a Cure for Anything"
5. St. Louise is Listening- Slow motion heavy metal. First song with over guitar sounds (maybe just the high strings on the bass?) Droney vocals, good for driving at night. If I drove at night, I hate driving at night now, the headlights bother my eyes, but if I was a passenger I would want to hear this whole album and watch urban decay of Detroit or Buffalo from the passenger seat of an armored Cadillac-
6.Maybe I'll Come Down- Gee, wonder what THAT means? Maybe a double entendre? Very cool scat singing with descending bass line...with ambiguous existential lyrics about existence or a hangover, who knows?
Great background music because it seems to have its own background also.
Like a party within a party.
7. Houston: Bit of a Rock Lobster vibe here at the beginning with the screechy synth bits and duck sounds (!) Or is that the plangent sound of the waka-jawaka machine? No, it's a duck, no kidding. The tension builds, this song is about a guy stalking a waitress?? No, his girlfriend went to Houston. I guess. She will leave him. Too bad, you got a cool song out of it dude, Soul Coughing fans 1, ex girlfriend zero...good for you! Make money out of your pain and buy a nice car with it, why not? I know if I could, I would! (so, let it go...apologies to U2)
8. $300-They chose this song to play when House was coming down from Methadone. What do you THINK it sounds like? Do I have to do EVERYTHING in this interview??!!
Seriously, I'll tell you. Drony guitars,trippy wobbly samples and vocals that soar and harmonize , very clanky sounding like two one man electric bands in a basement who haramonize. This is the song that made me buy this. Along with the samples on the internet. There is nothing like this song or Soul Coughing. At all. Period, dot.
9.Fully Retractable- Is this a song about Turtles? No. Maybe it should have been. I am skipping this one. Good background music for a party.
10. Monster Man. This one stinks.
11.Pensacola. Unlistenable, like some of really indulgent King Crimson songs are. But worse because they are NOT King Crimson.
12. I Miss the Girl- Great witty hip-hop with some driving 60's trash pop choruses....risky, but I like it.
13. So Far I Have Not Found The Science-The closest they get to "Little Miss Can't be Wrong". This song IS the worst on the album, it almost sounds like they were trying to make a "hit". Yeah, right, "My Sharona" it's not.....(before you judge, just listen to that song, it's really brilliant) It's getting unlistenable now.....glad its over. Maybe they wanted it to be their "Cat Food"
14. The Incumbent: Cool farfisa or Leslie Organ sounds with subdued hardwood drums and faint vocals. Cool confused rhythm. I would expect to hear this at a very trendy gallery opening in 1998. It probably was. Share your experience.
To sum it all up. A little uneven, but the good songs far outweigh the bad ones. Please, it is NOT a PERFECT album ( Like After the Snow or Revolver or Led Zeppelin III or Hot Rats) but it is a darn GOOD album and you should get it before it disappears because it represents a real alternative to endlessly replayed crappy 90's music like Green Day and other major key "punk" bands. This is timeless like Zappa, Blondie, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop, The Velvet Underground, The Feelies, The Horseflies, et al. This is like that Velvet Underground Band you hate 20% of but LOVE 65% of and are unsure about the rest.
Description of El Oso
Japanese Version featuring Two Bonus Tracks: 212 and Rare Star BallSoul Coughing expand their funky free-for-all with El Oso, a sturdy shack of samples rattling around in a boogie cup. No, it's not a disco revival, just a new way of grooving. Showing more muscle than on their previous release, Irresistable Bliss, frontman M. Doughty spews nonsequiturs between the band's airy jams as if he were the blue-eyed hip-hop equivalent of Robyn Hitchcock. Doughty and the band shake hands with the loping "Circles," whisper sweet nothings to the piano-fed "Blame," and create semi-organic drum & bass on "Blame." "$300," the most addictive cut, slips under a raga spell as keyboardist M'ark De Gli Antoni spikes the brew with digital dust. Aside from "So Far I Have Not Found the Science" (a nearly direct rip-off of their own "Blue Eyed Devil," from their debut release, Ruby Vroom), Soul Coughing have pushed their techno-funk sound further, making El Oso equally limber and bracing. --Jason Josephes
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