Avant-garde rockers tend to take themselves way too seriously, but fortunately, multi-instrumentalist Ralph Carney has never had that problem. The Ohio-bred, California-based Carney has spent a career coaxing the most joyously odd sounds out of a variety of reed and percussion instruments, and his first solo album since 1987's Happiness Finally Came to Them is a giggly mix of strange rhythms and stranger noises. The mutated swing jazz rumble of "Fun Fun Fun" -- not the Beach Boys' t...   [ read more ]

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Tom Waits sideman and Oranj Symphonette's multi-instrumentalist Carney plays all grunts, squeaks and peculiarities here with only the tiniest exception. Carney's sound imagineering defies classification (maybe it's skronk), though it has far more in common with the jazz avant garde of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane than anything rock. The Buddhist vibe of "Death Don't Come Easy" is straightforward till the joke hits: First you suffer, then you die. Tarnation's Paula Frazer adds a vocal to "Hawaiian Eye,...   [ read more ]

CD $14.23