Lovage
It's promised as a 'smoky lounge of lust, intrigue and herbs - where satin sheets meet slipmats, and chocolate truffles and a massage meet turntables and a mixer'. And without exception, it's not far wrong. The salacious intent of a million love songs are stripped down to their fundamentals ( and their socks) and laid bare for all to see. If there was ever a more pleasurable baring of the device, then we'd sure as hell like to know about it. Produced by Dan "the Automator" Nakamura of Gorillaz, Deltron 3030, Octagon, Handsome Boy Modeling School fame, the album features a celebrity sleaze montage of guest vocalists and informers: Faith No More's Mike Patton, Elysian Fields' Jennifer Charles, Kid Koala on decks. Hamming up the role of sexologist in residence on the recording are Chest Rockwell AKA. Prince Paul from Handsome Boy Modeling School, Charmelle Carmel from De La Soul and Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz. Part hip-hop, part retro, part deconstruction, part soul, part Hitchcock, part film noir, the album is a delirious, heady blend of sleazy kitsch pop and sci-fi trip hop. Popularized by the monstrous visual success of Gorillaz, Nakamura's mystery science-theatre this time courts a tastefully erotic theatre of the soul and mind. At once manual, kit model and soundtrack to love. Lovage postulates on courtship, personal hygiene, seduction, erotomania and transgression, simulltaneously managing to push the boundaries of the subconscious and music itself in the process. If Gorillaz were like Josie and The Pussycats, Lovage is like the aural fusion of The Joy of Sex, the Kama Sutra and Pandora's Box. Naturalistically conceived and thoughtfully executed, the album takes all the kitsch seventies reference points of The Avalanche's Since I left You and welds them with an sultry fetish slideshow of europorn and Easy Tempos. It's got the joys, the tastes and the smells of sex - make no mistake about it - you will be seduced by this album. Crud seriously believes that if you are just looking for one album to remember this years and next years love by - this is the album. Imaginative, referential, playful in it's deconstruction of the courtship myth, Lovage a hugely melodic listen and looks set to be one of the best underground releases of 2001. Trained in classical violin from the age of three until his teenage years, Nakumara, says of the present climate: " Hip-Hop hasn't done anything as cool as Portishead, Bjork or Radiohead in ten years...For me futuristic is simple, it's Windows. It's the internet, communicating something quickly and directly" As quick and direct as the album's impact is though, this by no means a casual knee-trembler listen: it's a durable and full on session.... Alan Sargeant for Crud Magazine