Mushroom - Foxy Music

Year of Release: 2001
Label: InnerSPACE Records
Catalog Number: CS049/EFA 05430-2
Format: CD
Total Time: 53:10:00

Mushroom have another interesting and intriguing release in their latest, Foxy Music. It is a mix of jazz and funk with plenty of groove, all begun by the sultry bounce of "Grooving With Herbie." The mix on this track is so rich with flute, drums and percussion, bass, guitar, and who knows what else...a melodic cacophony that will get you moving. "I Got Blisters On My Fingers" is a happy organ (Michael Bluestein) driven tune (Hammond, me thinks). Bright and cheery, it will recall the late 60s ... in colours much like those used in the album artwork, big flowers, go-go girls, and all. "Joe Namath" begins with a tuba (Jon Birdsong) blurting out short come ons, while guitar (Josh Pollock) and bass (Kurt Statham) play cheerleader to the seduction ... by a pantyhose wearing quarterback. For those too young to know (most of you out there, right? ), Namath is an ex-NY Jets quarterback who once appeared in a L'eggs commercial in nylons...this would have been somewhere around the early to mid-seventies, or so.

The title track features the very seductive vocals of Allison Faith Levy ... they have the same animal magnetism as Eartha Kitt, and yet also give you a sense of being very heady with the smell of incense, marijuana and the effects of some hallucinogen. Groovy. "I Had Some Dreams, They Were Clouds In My Coffee" is a mellow, fluffy and puffy song, with a leisurely, floating pace...very much unlike the Carly Simon song the title is taken from ("You're So Vain"). Let go of the ties that bind you and drift away, floating ever further away from the chaos of the world...higher and higher 'till earth is nothing but a blue and white marble...

Oh, sorry, getting carried away there ... no pun intended. We are brought back to the hard realities of earth with "Getting In Thun," a cacophony of chiming bells, modulated sounds, and pounding drums. This melds into the half jazzy, half abstract "Americans Own The Moon, They Bought It From The Germans - Who Won It During A Poker Game In World War II." Experimental keyboard exclamations are set against a shiny, chipper guitar. Duck when "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For McGovern" begins, or you'll be beheaded by the circling blades - the sound effect that runs throughout this track. "Terry and Jerry" is a brief spoken word slice of humour that leads into the alien space rock that is "Super Goody Bags" -- blurps, beeps and squeaks form the core of this quirky bit of electronica. This leads into "For Men With Beards" which is the most eclectic piece on the album, and includes a sublime sax (Erik Pearson) and trumpet (Marc Capelle) duet...cornet ( Birdsong) is in there, too, somewhere. This evokes for me Rick Braun and Herb Alpert and Miles Davis simultaneously -- there's the hint of smoothness, the brassy tones of the trumpet (a la Alpert) and yet a sense of the abstract that I associate with Davis. Throughout, Patrick O'Hearn plays near martial drums in spurts, before this all fades away to leave only the sweet sounds of the trumpet (under which a sound clip is played for a section of), sax and cornet. The last segment of this track is the most beautiful part of the whole album, though the album itself is stellar.

Foxy Music gets from me 10 of 10 groovy points.

By the way, for those inclined towards vinyl, the double-lp version of Foxy Music will features 30 minutes more music than the CD version. It contains extended length versions of "Grooving With Herbie," "I Got Blisters...," and "Joe Namath," plus three additional tracks "The Flipper," "Van The Man," and "Birdsong (The Songbird)."

Tracklisting:
Grooving With Herbie (5:51) / The Greatest Pleasure In Life Is Doing What People Say You Can Not Do (2:06) / I Got Blisters On My Fingers (4:18) / Joe Namath (5:30) / Foxy Music (5:57) / I Had Some Dreams, They Were Clouds In My Coffee (6:43) / Getting In Thun (2:37) / Americans Own The Moon, They Bought It From The Germans - Who Won It During A Poker Game In World War II (3:57) / Don't Blame Me, I Voted For McGovern (4:02) / Terry & Jerry (0:26) / Super Goody Bags (1:13) / For Men With Beards (10:30)

Musicians:
Jon Birdsong - cornet, tuba, effects
Erik Pearson - snake guitar, flute, sax, violin
Patrick O'Hearn - drums
Michael Holt - Rhodes piano, Oberheim
Dave Mihaly - percussion
Carroll Ashby - trombone
Josh Pollock - guitar
Kurt Statham - bass

Guests:

Marc Capelle - trumpet (5, 12)
Michael Bluestein - organ (1, 2,3, 9)
Jay Radford - sitar, oud, saz (4,5,6,7,8)
Allison Faith Levy - vocal (5)
Michael Clare - bass (5)

Discography:
Mushroom (?)
'The Reeperbahn' (1997)
Alive And In Full Bloom (1998)
Cream Of Mushroom (1998)
Hydrogen Jukebox (1998)
Analog Hi-Fi Surprise (1999)
Leni Riefenstah (lp only) (2000)
Compared To What (2000)
Foxy Music (2001)
Glazed Popems (2004)
Really Don't Mind If You Sit This One Out (2006)
Joint Happening (w/Eddie Gale) (2007)

Genre: Other

Origin US

Added: October 26th 2001
Reviewer: Stephanie Sollow
Score:
Artist website: www.myspace.com/mushroomoakland
Hits: 2501
Language: english