Throw together three members of Midnight Oil and one member each from Hunters & Collectors and Violent Femmes and you’d be forgiven for assuming the results would be a sparkling pop masterpiece: some sort of holy conglomerate of ‘Beds are Burning’, ‘The Holy Grail’ and ‘Blister in the Sun’. That’s what I had in my head when I gave Space Farm its first spin. I was dead wrong.
The Break are Rob Hirst (drummer, Midnight Oil), Jim Maginie (Guitar/keys, Midnight Oil), Martin Rotsey (Guitar, Midnight Oil), Brian Ritchie (Bass, Violent Femmes) and Jack Howard (horns, Hunters & Collectors). The album they have come together to create, is one of the most perplexing of 2013. It carries none of the hallmarks of the band mate’s better known groups. Instead, The Break have created a distorted, psychedelic, surf-rock odyssey sprawling across 40 plus minutes.
With track names like ‘Psychonauts’, ‘Fumbling for Eons Through Turbid’ and ‘Sky, I Use You Like a Mirror’, it’s clear that Space Farm is intended to be a throwback- and album created by musicians who don’t need to say anything profound and who are unburdened by creative restraints.
The results (as expected) are weird, but the good kind of weird. Only one song on the album has any vocals- the spacey, country jam ‘Ten Guitars’, features a collaboration with crooner Engelbert Humperdinck. The rest of the album is a conglomeration of devilish surf-guitar, monastery chanting and dark, grandiose horns. It comes off sounding like depraved Dick Dale and his Deltones playing spaghetti western music.
And if all that sounds too weird for your tastes, it probably is. But as confronting and different as Space Farm is, it’s not an unpleasant listening experience. Just know you’ve been warned.
Sony
4/10
Reviewer: Nick Mackay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muE2CqCpKTU