Slug, or Ian Black formerly of Field Music, made his name eclectically important for his creative music on his first LP in 2015, Ripe (QRO review). He had played a part in the U.K. music scene in Field Music, but whether you liked them or not, Ripe was a true inspiration, both darkly atmospheric and instrumentally composed.
Creativity was the name, and while Slug received both positive and negative feedback, bless the guy for adding to the Frank Black or more aptly A.A. Bondy vein of indie, rather than this other nonsense called “new wave or loop music,” which is drone music.
HiggledyPiggledy is both very jazzy and very atmospheric, but mostly it is very Slug-y. If Ripe was a symphony, this is an opus, a debatabley good or bad opus, but definitely of his intention. The beginning “No Heavy Petting”, is funk in the trunk like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and is frankly good musically, but brilliant lyrically. “Lackadaisical Love” is equally more than just a guitar line, it is emotively and lyrically akin to something like American DJ UNKLE, and does alright in this.
“Dolly Dimple” is kind of a silly piece, but perhaps for the better. It goes for the Beatles (White Album maybe) and combines it with Radiohead (to be more U.K. about this). It’s the jazziness that stands out in this release, though, sure it is all over the place sometimes, but it is great jazz, if weird jazz is your thing, and as Slug breaks free of his former genres, you may feel you have as well like a weirdly euphoric trip at it’s best. This is a great thing for a record to be.
“Earlobe” has the right kind of speedy guitar line, one of the things seen in Ripe, and songs like “You Don’t Need To Wake Up” contain some edgy rock and have a jazziness too. Some pieces are all over the place as said, but when it comes together well on numbers like “Lackadaisical Love”, which is maybe the best on here, in the mellow keys it brings, the experiment is good. “No Heavy Petting” similarly plays good experimental rock. The best originality though is on the final few tracks, including the emotional wrath of lighter sounding “A Soft Shoe Number”, heavier sounding “Arbitrary Lessons in Custom”, or instrumentally complex “You Are as Cold as A Dead Fish”.
Some of the other songs are OK, but a little too experimental, “Petulia” for instance, but it doesn’t hurt the completeness of the release.
HiggledyPiggledy is one of the most interesting, emotional, and thought provoking releases of the year. It may be a little more experimental than Ripe, and though musically comparable, too personal to match the solidness of Ripe, but it is still really well done. HiggledyPiggledy is like Future of The Left meets Spoon, and attempts, largely successfully, to be a classic or influential album rather than a rock cliche.
