Hamster Theatre - The Public Execution of Mr. Personality

and Quasi Day Room: Live at the Moore Theatre

Released: 2006
Style: Avant Progressive / Avant-Rock with Folk elements
Country: USA
Label: Cuneiform Records
Catalog #: Rune 226/227
Quality: MP3, CBR 320, Stereo / FLAC
Size: 101+123 / 240+329 Mb (3% recovery info)

Hamster Theatre - превосходная и очень интересная авант-роковая американская группа с уникальным звучанием. Играет совершенно улетную, достаточно легкую для восприятия и не без юмора музыку, в которой богато намешано разного - фольклорных элементов, рока, джаза, авангарда. Из наиболее близкого по духу могу назвать Nimal (ну и Bratko Bibic с Begnagrad), Debile Menthol, отчасти - сольное творчество Ларса Холлмера.
The Public Execution of Mister Personality - второй и последний на сегодня полноценный студийный альбом группы, издаваемый Cuneiform как двойной диск вместе с концертной записью с фестиваля Progman Cometh 2002 года. Рекомендую.



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OK, tell the truth now -- this band is not really from Boulder, CO, right? Hamster Theatre must be from someplace where the likes of Lars Hollmer, Momo Rossel, or Guigou Chenevier live -- Sweden, Switzerland, or France. Then again, Hamster driving force Dave Willey took a trip to the Continent one day and brought some influences back to Boulder with him, and the North American continent is better for it. That helps explain how Hamster Theatre wound up sounding like they do, that plus the likelihood that the bandmembers' record collections tip more toward European folk, modern composition, Roma jazz, circus and cartoon music, and various Rock in Opposition bands than toward singers wearing cowboy hats. Regardless of inspirational sources, circa the mid-2000s no other American band is quite like Hamster Theatre. And please note the use of the word band in the preceding sentence, because if your only experience in Hamsterworld thus far is the 2001 Cuneiform CD Carnival Detournement, you are forgiven for supposing that Hamster Theatre is a studio project led by Willey and Jon Stubbs, an avant rock Becker and Fagen. Carnival featured Willey (who is mainly an accordionist) and Stubbs (who is mainly a keyboardist/trombonist) on about a million instruments each with the other bandmembers and assorted co-conspirators on comparatively few, and the result -- as great as it is -- had a certain studio-bound flavor suggesting the improbability of reproducing the music on-stage. But as their 1998 independent release Siege on Hamburger City had already proved, the Hamsters are indeed a band, capable of kicking out spirited renditions of complex yet highly engaging instrumental rock-folk-classical-jazz in a live setting without a single overdub. Hamburger City was recorded at a Denver cafe, but in August 2002 the Hamsters brought their show to the higher-profile Progman Cometh festival in Seattle, and thanks to Cuneiform's 2006 release of the group's two-CD The Public Execution of Mister Personality/Quasi Day Room, home listeners can now experience the music that led to jaws dropping all around Seattle's Moore Theatre when the rodents hit the stage. Close to the complete show, expertly mixed and mastered by Bob Drake, is featured on this package's Quasi Day Room disc, preceded by the 13-track Mister Personality studio disc, again with Drake's sonic imprimatur in evidence throughout.

The Mister Personality track titles suggest an impenetrable in-joke (e.g., "Love Theme from 'All Clytemestra on the Western Front'"), but the music -- with an immediacy and cohesive "bandlike" flow despite overdubbing and track-to-track personnel changes -- is easily appreciated by anyone who doesn't flee in terror from a musical challenge. Mister Personality has the complexity and technical skill of prog rock and includes occasional startling intrusions of abrasive textures and experimental noise, but is warmed considerably by Willey's accordion often in the center of the musical swirl, not to mention an appealing European folk melodicism mixed with a classicist's sense of composition. Willey, Stubbs, reedman Mark Harris, guitarist Mike Johnson, and drummer Raoul Rossiter (with bassist Matt Spencer and violist Emily Bowman on one track each) have created something a bit darker in tone than Carnival Detournement, at times seeming to draw inspiration from Henry Cow's instrumental depictions of capitalist nightmares on 1979's Western Culture. "La Sacre d'Merde" begins in Leg End territory but soon recalls the ominousness of Present as Johnson draws long searing guitar lines à la Roger Trigaux across Willey's multi-layered keyboard ostinatos. Yet the moments of dark drama are leavened by that appealing folk-classical touch and instrumentation that includes "Jon's homemade fretless banjo," bells, marimba, and ukulele. There is subtle beauty and melodiousness, too, exemplified by Harris' moody clarinet, very much in the spirit of Aksak Maboul's Marc Hollander on the lovely but still-skewed "Phoenix." And on "Reddy 4 Luv," the Hamsters sound like avant-proggers out for a good time on a Caribbean beach. The live disc begins with 90 seconds of Drake's very creative solution to technical difficulties that prevented the beginning of the first piece, "Bean Dance," from being recorded, and the listener is then treated to a rousing, dynamic, and sometimes mysterious and beautiful musical trip, as Willey, Stubbs, Harris, Johnson, Rossiter, and bassist Brian McDougall roll out a diverse program drawing from Carnival, Hamburger City, and Willey's solo Songs from the Hamster Theatre. On a lovely piece like "Jeanne-Marie," wistfulness and delicacy are blended with the power of rock in a way that recalls Lars Hollmer at his best. Don't ever think you've got Hamster Theatre completely figured out, though, as the band segues from the Zappa-meets-dub of "Vermilion Hue Over Lake Lausanne" through the cabaret waltz of "Tick Fever" to the defiantly uncategorizable multi-sectioned "Ving Vang," with its subdued theremin-meets-accordion intro leading into a fractured-tempo car chase soundtrack. No wonder the Hamsters wound up at or near the top of so many Progman Cometh best-of-festival lists. Comparable to Miriodor's Parade + Live at NEARfest, Hamster Theatre's The Public Execution of Mister Personality/Quasi Day Room is a landmark two-disc studio/live set proving that the European RIO-based sounds of the '70s and '80s have taken root and can sprout up almost anywhere, even in the post-millennial Rocky Mountain State.

Dave Lynch, www.allmusic.com (AMG Album Pick, кстати)




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Track listing:

Disc 1 (The Public Execution of Mister Personality)
1. Race Against Time (2:11)
2. 162 (4:37)
3. We Unearth the Lost Book of Mr. Personality, and Its Consequences (2:30)
4. Reddy 4 Luv (1:44)
5. The Quasi Day Room Ceremonial Quadrille (2:46)
6. Love Theme from All Clymtemnestra on the Western front (1:51)
7. Oye Comatose (6:55)
8. Litost (4:26)
9. Le Sacre D'Merde (2:59)
10. The Quasi Day Room Ceremonial Tango (1:29)
11. The Fairytale in Reverse (4:28)
12. Phoenix (4:25)
13. It Was Only a Dream (2:52)

Total Time 45:58

Disc 2 (Quasi Day Room: Live at the Moore Theatre)
1. Bean Dance (4:47)
2. The Cat Song (3:05)
3. Bur Di Lie Down So (6:27)
4. Jeanne-Marie (3:35)
5. Bug 2: The History of the United States of America (4:12)
6. Vermilion Hue Over Lake Lausanne (6:17)
7. Tick Fever (2:41)
8. Vang Vang (5:04)
9. Home (3:56)
10. The 5 (2:49)
11. Hamster Dance (4:23)
12. The Bug Show (4:29)
13. Cat 2: Siege on Hamburger City (4:41)

Total Time: 56:25

Line-up:

Dave Willey - accordion, keyboards, bass, drums, guitar
Jon Stubbs - trombones, bass, keyboards
Mark Harris - saxophones, clarinets, flutes, percussion
Mike Johnson - guitars, mandolin, banjo, percussion
Raoul Rositer - drums, percussion, marimba
Brian McDougall - bass (disc 2)
Matt Spencer - bass (disc 1)
Emily Bowman - stroh viola (disc 1)
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