Need New Body UFO

I hate Captain Beefheart. I understand that, on a website that explores some of the more interesting and underground types of music being currently made, this is the equivalent of announcing your crack addiction at your parents' silver wedding celebrations. He gets on my nerves: the wacky humour, the free-jazz odysseys, the ugly imagery, the endless battalions of nerdy, bearded men claiming that he's the most important musician since some other goofy arsehole that I hate just as much. Same with Frank Zappa: there's another control-freak who makes fun out of everything except his own monumental sense of self-importance. Given that Need New Body are probably massive Beefheart fans, and given that most of what I say in the following paragraphs could probably relate to Trout Mask Replica (or any other album which, is, like, actually his real masterpiece in some obscure poll), I may appear to contradict myself. In fact, I do for sure, at least once, but fuck it. However, I'm going to have to figure out why, given his influence on UFO, I like Need New Body so much...

We've all heard the arguments against overtly experimental music (modern art dissenters tend to work with the same material): it's just noise, it doesn't mean anything, they're just being obscure for the sake of it, etc etc. And, to be fair, there is a hell of a lot of boring experimental music out there, wherein abstraction veils a lack of good ideas. Plus, 'experimental' music is generally as shocking as Country and Western music these days; we've appreciated/gaped at the notion of Cage's silence, Stockhausen's helicopter and Sonic Youth's dirges, but we just don't get shocked, challenged and confused so easily anymore; we just get bored.

What saves Need New Body's alleged 'experimentalism' is energy, humour that emerges on the right side of annoying and, like why?'s debut album, moments of humanity within the obscurity. Need New Body mix genres, which is always a hazardous ambition (think 99% of rap metal), but to overwhelmingly convincing effect, especially on the staggeringly infectious new wave spy soundtrack Show Me Your Heart. Moondear sounds like Smog's Bill Callahan collaborating with why?, and elsewhere they sound like the Boredoms' take on Talking Heads. Most importantly, they also remember Brian Eno's observation that the power of rhythm is all too often neglected or under-developed in Western music (and although this was made pre-acid house, we may have been spared a lot of dull-but-worthy music if he'd repeated it occasionally); thankfully, on UFO, Hot Shot, the aforementioned Show Me Your Heart and Popfest, amongst others, are cleverly structured as to approach things from a new angle whilst almost demanding to be Djed.

Takes on established/antiquated genres are littered throughout UFO (the ridiculous cocktail jazz of Make Gay Love Not War, Magicfinger's overly cheerful banjo), and sandwich the hyperactive rant Beach - a clever sequencing move which throws into focus the continued reliance on the frenetic and the inane in 20th/21st Century music. Thankfully, rather than giving their music occasional inane elements, Need New Body choose to embrace inanity (which doesn't have to be wacky, let us not forget) with unwavering conviction; this is mixed into their undeniably forceful rhythmic call-to-arms, and it's no coincidence that these are notable features of the various schools of jazz that they plunder irreverently. Aside from the occasional cloyingly-pretentious moment, the end result is a strong argument not to over-intellectualise music, but to instead give in to its ability to take you away from thought, and towards the brink of euphoric insanity. And, given that I've just argued my own review into obscurity, I'll shut the fuck up and stick it on again - which, if you haven't got the hint yet, is something you should be doing.