Combining astrological signs for fun and profit

Outkast's Aquemini is the finest hip hop album of all time. If you listen to it, you will join me in this opinion.

I think I need to talk about indie music some time soon.

Man Man has consumed an incredible chunk of my listening time since I first stumbled upon them back in April. I can't find any lyrics, and it is thus far unconfirmed to me whether to pronounce the band's name MAN man or just manman (I've favoured the latter), but I'm blessed by them all the same. With Tom Waits nearing death, I'm overjoyed that his spirit - and fubar'd vocal chords - have found a new home in frontman Honus Honus. I'm pretty sure that isn't his real name.

I haven't got a hold of the band's debut, but Six Demon Bag is more than enough to secure them in my top ten best evar list.

I played the album for my dad once, briefly, and he's a pretty cool guy, but he fairly summed it up as "Circus music. Like the kind people would play if the end of the world were announced and their minds snapped." It's cacophonic, to be sure. Drummer Pow Pow is astonishingly high in the mix, and isn't the least bit shy about taking charge of songs with richocheting floor tom beats. Beyond him, I can't rightly discern what if there are any other goddamn standard instruments. Members switch between trombones, pianos, synthesizers, woodblocks, and the odd cello. Electric and bass guitars are used spastically, and more to add punch to particular measures than as any kind of centrepiece. Songs get their hooks from Honus's monstrously strong voice and uncanny sense of rythm (Black Mission Goggles clips along with a delicious rip of Come Together's infalliable cadence; it is teh motherfucking awesome), which his bandmates assist via further insane growling and girlish squealing.

The album's punctuated with the occasional throw away track of pure freakout. You don't want to put SDB on your iPod and then hit shuffle, these songs will fuck you up if you're not prepared. While such unnecessary show-boating (Cedric and Omar, I'm looking squarely at you two idiots) usually makes an otherwise great album an exercise in pure tedium, it works here. I still can't quite palate the two second long Fishstick Gumbo (summary: a squeaky door slams and Honus lets loose the scariest peal of laughter you will ever hear), nor the way way overdone Hot Bat (it repeats the same scathing couple of bars for a minute and a half), they work in the context of the album.

It's one of those. You have to listen straight through or you only receive 1/3 your daily requisite intake of awesome.

Einstein on the Beach is the finest swath of total madness ever to come out of non-grind music. Honus's adoption of a shrill scream instead of his usual Waitsian crackle is deliciously well done, as are the pumping synthesizers manned by some other guy. The big payoff? The ending breaks down into Russian Dancing Music. You know that time where russian guys in big coats and little fur hats cross their arms and kick their legs out like they're made of rubber? It's phenomenal.

The absolute centre piece of the album is the unbelievably sharp Van Helsing Boombox, a melody infused dirge that's the easiest starting point to appreciating the band. It's had a fair bit of airplay on college stations, as I understand it, and it's about the only song I can get non-believers to listen to on a regular basis. But for good reason: Honus plays the piano with an eqloquence that isn't readily apparent on other tracks, and the low chord/high chord melodies he summons for Boombox are absolutely enchanting. He tones down the vocal intensity to sing about loss and hopelessness, and is flawlessly accompanied by his bandmates' New-Orleans funereal march playing.

Engwish Bwudd is also a must hear, if only for the chorus. Honus rythmically barks out, "Fee fie fo fum", and the band chimes in falsetto, "I smell the blood of an English maa-an!"

It's gorgeous, you'll see.

The album closes with the enigmatically poppy Ice Dogs, which is about as confusing a closer as an album can get. Beginning in strong Man Man form, the band takes a breath halfway through and skips off into a mo-town sing along that has to be heard to be understood. The band creates a wall of effeminate "doop. shee-doobie-doop." while Honus soars above on a positively bluesy high. It's not like anything on the rest of the album, and it fills me with bewilderment and joy even after six months of listening. I still haven't properly registered the instrumentation of this fine closer, it's all about the band trailing off into what I'm sure are neon-sign lighted forests and rhine stone canyons.

I like to think Man Man lives in a place like that, and are deliriously happy about it.

Everyone go to sleep.