They say:
Bad Vibes, good times. Craig Clouse’s colourful, cacophonous, carnival rolls back into town once again. As Shit & Shine‘s demented ringleader Clouse has journeyed from wild bludgeoning noise rock through to twisted electronic experiments while maintaining a steady output on labels like Riot Season, Editions Mego, Diagonal and Rocket.
This can seem confusing, even profligate at times – the video for ‘Yeah I’m On Acid’ that trailed this release arrived at exactly the same time as the Very High EP, a set of three extended plunderphonic funk jams that exist in a parallel timeline to this set. Although it does seem Bad Vibes is going to be the only full length release this year. I harbour suspicions that the sleeves, which tend to be lurid paintings, dog photos or stark graphics, carry some illuminative quality beyond whichever label is putting out the release but what they truly signify remains slippery. This time it’s a vivid aquamarine pool with palm trees and the ocean beyond. Personally, it kind of looks like hell but I’m not sure it’s supposed to engender bad vibes so much as contrast.
‘Bottle Brushes’ opens with some washed out Badalamenti jazz-noir, James Brown is cast as the backwards talking man in the red suit through samples from a chaotic TV interview that slowly pepper the track. Brown sings, claims “there’s nothing wrong” and gives a little chuckle that Clouse loops to sinister effect. It recalls his use of Diamond Dave’s burblings on last year’s ‘Excess, Laziness Egotism’, one of the stand outs from Total Shit!
Read the full review here: E&D
---
